{"id":2183,"slug":"point-udall-st-croix-u-s-virgin-islands","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Point Udall is where America's day begins. The easternmost point of the United States — the rocky tip of St. Croix's East End, where the road runs out — was named in 1969 for Stewart Udall, JFK and LBJ's Interior Secretary, who'd dedicated Buck Island Reef by cutting the ribbon underwater in swim trunks. The point itself is Upper Cretaceous volcanic rock rotated up out of the sea, the eastern edge of everything under the flag.","The monument came for the millennium — the giant sundial built above the point for New Year's 2000, marking the azimuth of the first sunrise to touch American soil that year. About 150 people showed up at dawn on January 1, 2000 — Governor Turnbull, Mo Udall's nephew, twenty doves, the flags raised as the sun came up over the Atlantic on the country's eastern edge.","The geography carries a symmetry only the Udalls could manage: the country's westernmost point, in Guam, is also Point Udall — named for Stewart's brother Mo, the Arizona congressman. When Mo died in 1998, Clinton's statement conflated them into one line that's still quoted: 'The sun will never set on the legacy of Mo Udall' — the sun rising on Stewart's point in the Caribbean and setting past Mo's in the Pacific.","Point Udall is the archive's sunrise file — the easternmost point of the United States on St. Croix, named for Stewart Udall, where the Millennium Monument sundial marks the first American sunrise of the year 2000."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Point Udall is the archive's easternmost file — the St. Croix point that is the first place the sun touches the United States, named for Stewart Udall and paired with his brother Mo's westernmost Point Udall in Guam.","A point that starts the day keeps its sundial — the file's suggestion being that Udall's hold is the azimuth: the first-sunrise line through the Millennium Monument on the eastern edge of the flag."]}],"name":"Point Udall","aliases":[],"type":"POINT","type_label":"Point","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","MYSTERIOUS_NATURAL_SITE","HISTORIC_SITE"],"groups":["hauntings","legends"],"desc":"The easternmost point of the United States—Millennium Monument above the sea.","full_desc":"A point in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Point Udall is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The easternmost point of the United States—Millennium Monument above the sea. HauntHunt files it with mysterious natural sites, local folklore and haunted places. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"St. Croix","county":null,"state":"U.S. Virgin Islands","postal":null,"region":"Caribbean","lat":17.7558,"lon":-64.66,"coord_kind":"EXACT","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"New record from encyclopedia/official-source pass; VERIFY task auto-queued for primary-source corroboration.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":70,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0.85,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":1512,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Visitors report a presence at the Millennium Monument overlook—the nation’s easternmost point. Point Udall in St. Croix, U. S. Virgin Islands carries the report the way old places do — as part of its identity. It circulates as local folklore — the kind communities keep rather than verify. 'Point Udall (U. S. Virgin Islands)' carries the account. The apparition is the file's anchor — every other report orbits it.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Point Udall (U.S. Virgin Islands)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Udall_(U.S._Virgin_Islands)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The Millennium Monument was erected in 2000 at the nation’s easternmost point. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. 'Point Udall (U.S. Virgin Islands)' documents the entry. The date is part of the site's documented spine.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":"2000","confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Point Udall (U.S. Virgin Islands)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Udall_(U.S._Virgin_Islands)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Visitors report a presence at the Millennium Monument overlook—the nation’s easternmost point. Point Udall in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands carries the report the way old places do — as part of its identity. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. The retelling is the record now — the legend metabolized the facts long ago.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Point Udall (U.S. Virgin Islands)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Udall_(U.S._Virgin_Islands)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Site access varies; verify before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Point Udall (U.S. Virgin Islands)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Udall_(U.S._Virgin_Islands)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"place_type","existing_value":"POINT","incoming_value":"HISTORIC_SITE","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Point Udall","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Udall","desc":"Topics referred to by the same term","extract":"Point Udall  may refer to:\n\nPoint Udall (Guam), named after Mo Udall and regarded as the westernmost point of the United States\nPoint Udall (U.S. Virgin Islands), named after Stewart Udall and regarded as the easternmost point of the United States","img":null,"score":74},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}