Spain, Mexico, the United States, and the Navajo Nation all claimed ownership of the area surrounding the Four Corners monument.

Mexico declared independence from Spain, and held the area for a short time before ceding the area to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848. The treaty ended the U.S.-Mexican War and increased the extent of the United States to close to its current size.

Ehud N. Darling conducted a survey of the land in 1868 and marked the location between the four territories of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona with a sandstone marker. Seven years later, a survey conducted by Chandler Robbins moved the marker to its current location. The Navajo Parks and Recreation Department currently possesses the land upon which the marker is located.

The Navajo Parks and Recreation Department (NPRD) and the Colorado Bureau of Land Management dispute current claims that the site is invalid, and the location of the meeting of these invisible borders are up to 2.5 miles from the current site.

The NPRD base their case upon the 1925 Supreme Court case New Mexico v Colorado in which New Mexico claimed a different border with Colorado based on a previous survey at the turn of the 20th Century accepted by the General Land Office and approved by Congress.

In 1992, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management under the Department of the Interior officially recognized the site as legitimate in a cadastral survey.

Narrative written by University of West Florida Public History Student, Ryan Broome.