Just a few miles west of downtown Portland, two lines intersect to form the origin—or initial point—of a grid system by which all lands in Washington and Oregon are divided, surveyed, and recorded. A baseline running east-west extends from the Pacific Ocean to the Idaho border. The north-south axis—the Willamette Meridian—crosses the Columbia River just upstream from Kelley Point Park. The Treaty of Paris of 1803, which ended the Revolutionary War, and the ceding of the original 13 colonies’ western lands between 1780 and 1802 left the U.S. government with an enormous amount of land to keep
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