California was the first state to be carved out of the far western territories, and the question of its eastern boundary was a bit contentious—not least because so little was known about the geography east of the Sierra Nevada. A convention in 1849 finally decided on arbitrary geographic lines on the map. In the north, the eastern boundary would run along the 120th meridian of longitude from the 42nd parallel of latitude (the southern boundary of the Oregon territory) south to the 39th parallel. Then it would run southeasterly from…
