Northeast Corner of Texas
Follett, Lipscomb County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established by law in 1850 as intersection of 100-degree longitude and 36-degree, 30' latitude, this point remained in dispute 79 years. Of some nine surveys made to locate corner on ground, almost none coincided. Even so, three blocks were annexed to Texas from Oklahoma (1903, 1929) - to confusion of landowners. One man claimed he went to bed in Oklahoma and awoke in Texas. In 1929 U.S. Supreme Court had a final survey run. Some people with land formerly in Oklahoma could not afford to repurchase it in Texas, but exact site of corner was at last determined. (1970)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
For 79 years the exact northeast corner of Texas—defined in 1850 as the meeting of the 100th meridian and 36°30′ latitude—defied the surveyors sent to find it, with nine surveys yielding almost as many answers. Blocks of land shifted between Texas and Oklahoma, and one man joked he went to bed in Oklahoma and woke in Texas. Only in 1929 did the U.S. Supreme Court order a final survey that fixed the point for good.
Why it matters
The saga shows how hard it was to draw the surveyed lines that turned open plains into governed states.
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Nearby & related markers
Fairmont Cemetery
Follett, TX
At the far northern tip of Texas—closer to six other state capitals than to Austin—Fairmont Cemetery outlasted the towns that made it. Settlers founded Ivanhoe in Oklahoma in 1901, moved it to the railroad as South Ivanhoe, then in 1917 dragged its buildings on skids across the state line to a new Santa Fe stop named Follett. The cemetery, deeded in 1910, holds its first burial the reinterred body of a mother of six killed by lightning, alongside the children of Mexican railroad workers lost to the 1918 influenza epidemic and more than a hundred military veterans.
Follett
Follett, TX
Follett started life as "Ivanhoe" just across the line in Oklahoma, then chased the railroad, moving twice before settling on the Texas side in 1917. Renamed for a railroad surveyor, it became a gateway to the Panhandle's wheat-and-cattle "Golden Spread." Farming and ranching carried the town until oil and gas arrived in the 1950s.
Follett United Methodist Church and Church Bell
Follett, TX
Methodism reached this corner of the Panhandle with circuit rider Grant L. Hayes, who founded churches at Ivanhoe, Oklahoma, in 1902 and at Stillwater, Texas, in 1904. After Follett sprang up on the Santa Fe Railroad in 1917, the two congregations merged there. The Old Ivanhoe church bell, cast in Ohio in 1907, followed the flock — installed in the first church tower in 1924 and carried into the modern church as a link to the pioneer past.
Follett United Methodist Church
Follett, TX
Follett's Methodist congregation began in 1903 among panhandle pioneers served by horseback circuit riders, first gathering in Ivanhoe, Oklahoma. Following the railroad, the church moved to the new town of Follett, Texas, in 1917 and built a series of homes over the century — a basement church, a 1924 sanctuary, and a 1961 building on Highway 15.