[PW] Texas Geography Question [was: Texas Flag Question]

[Bradley Scott]

> As a Yankee who spent several years in Texas, I hope someone can answer
> a question about a curious little feature of Texan geography that I've always
> wondered about, but never been able to find a good answer to.
>
> Looking at a map of the US, if one proceeds north along the eastern edge
> of New Mexico one will travel along next to the Texas Panhandle, and then
> along beside a narrow strip of Oklahoma before bumping into Colorado.
>
> Now at first glance it appears this trip (along the Texas/Oklahoma border of
> New Mexico) is on a single, straight line.
>
> However, if you look at a map of sufficient resolution, you will see that the
> Oklahoma portion of that border is offset to the east by about a mile or so,
> relative to the Texas portion of the border.  (That is, New Mexico appears
> to "intrude" into Oklahoma by about a mile along the northern stretch
> of the border.)
>
> Does anyone know why this is?  Does this "indentation" have a name?

I don't have a definitive answer for you, but an online article from
The American Surveyor suggests that that boundary is "perhaps the most
inaccurate of any land line":

http://www.theamericansurveyor.com/PDF/TheAmericanSurveyor_Roeder-TX-NMLine_December2006.pdf

So ancient surveying errors might be involved.  Searching the online
Handbook of Texas (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/)  for
keywords like "boundaries" will reveal that there have been several
other controversies about the state's borders.  (Which fork of the Red
River is the *real* boundary?  Which *bank* of the river?, etc.)

Perhaps others will know more about the subject.  The actual
terminology defining the borders might also be instructive, but
unfortunately our library's closing and I don't have time to do any
more digging at the moment.

Bradley A. Scott