The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 53, July 1949 - April, 1950 Page: 404

rhe Claiit of rexas to freer Couity
BERLIN B. CHAPMAN
III
ARTS I and II of this article related how Texas for more
than a third of a century exercised all the sovereign pow-
ers of a state over Greer County, until the county was
found by a Supreme Court decision in 1896 to be outside her
borders. Attention was given to difficulties of locating the one
hundredth meridian. Part III relates how the location of the
meridian was finally determined, deals with the claim of Greer
County to school lands within Texas, and with questions of
land titles that arose within Greer County.
For more than thirty years after the decision in the Greer
County case the true one hundredth meridian was not definitely
determined. The case did not involve any part of the boundary
of Texas north of Red River. Nor did the well-known case of
Oklahoma v. Texas (1923), arising from the discovery of oil in
the bed of Red River, settle any dispute north of the river.
Yet, had it not been for that case "in all probability the contro-
versy as to the meridian line would have continued to sleep, at
least for many years."9'
Congress by an act of January 15, 19o1, authorized and di-
rected the secretary of the interior to cause to be established and
fixed the intersection of the true one hundredth meridian with
the south fork of Red River, by the most accurate and scientific
methods, and at said intersection cause a suitable monument
to be erected on the ground.2 The secretary of the interior on
May 31 detailed Arthur D. Kidder, examiner of surveys, to
9xMark L. Goodwin, "Border Strip, 28,500 Acres is Texas Gain," Dallas Morning
News, March 18, 1930.
"Oklahoma won the suit, but lost the oil . and the Texas legislature retaliated
by filing suit for a narrow strip of land on the western side of Oklahoma. It was
a century-old claim that Texas had, but had lost interest in until the Red river
controversy arose." Alvin Rucker, "Surveying the looth Meridian," Daily Okla-
homan, Jan. 29, 1928. See also Oklahoma v. Texas, U. S. Reports, CCLX, 6o6;
ibid., CCLXIX, 314.
92Statutes, XXXI, 731.