West Virginia

21 November 1991

Friendsville Quadrangle

I followed US 40, "The National Road", from Maryland into Pennsylvania, and then turned off onto a side road to "Markleysburg, Pa". Following the topographic map, I drove through the steady rain, out the south end of town on a road that should take me to within a few hundred feet of the Tri-State point. I parked on the Pennsylvania-Maryland border and was preparing to walk west to try to find the monumented Tri-State point when two workmen drove up from the south in a "Cumberland Gas" truck. "Looking for rain?" they said sarcastically. Well, I told them what I was looking for, but they insisted that they had just come from West Virginia, and that the Tri-State point was off to the east, not to the west. However, my topographic map clearly showed that the road was coming in from the south from Maryland, with the Tri-State point about 200 meters west. I showed them the USGS map, and they accepted my opinion and copied down the sheet name, saying it was much more detailed than their company maps! Then, I walked west, in the drizzle and mud, along their pipeline cut, and easily found a monument at the Tri-State point, and also a marker for the "Mason-Dixon Line Bicentennial Trail", 1767-1967. But no CGS bench marks. After some photographs, I retraced my way back to US 40 and continued westward toward the OH-PA-WV point.