Colorado - New Mexico boundary

From time to time there has been questions or discussion on this forum about the boundary between Colorado and New Mexico.

At work I received the publication Professional Surveyor Magazine even though I am not a surveyor. The most recent issue (July, 2010) has an article about surveying the southern boundary of Colorado. It is a rather interesting story of errors, attempts to correct the errors, resurveys, and withheld field notes pending payment.

A basic concept of surveying is that once a line has been surveyed and marked that is it. All later surveyors are to accept the surveyed line even it they believe the work had errors. The courts have held this to be the case. In the case of the Colorado-New Mexico line it was the U.S. Supreme Court that ruled.

If you are interested you can find an on-line version of the article here (look about 1/3 the way down the page for "History Corner: Retracing Colorado’s South Line"):
Professional Surveyor Magazine - current edition

Despite what the page says, the on-line edition has all of the text of the print edition of the story. It even has an extra photo.

Brian Norden