I stumbled across the lowest of the highs last month.  The lowest high point in all of the high points of the country’s 50 states that is.

It’s a mere 345 feet above mean sea level and it’s near Lakewood, Florida, way up north of me just a couple miles south of the Alabama state line.  That’s lower than many buildings in the state.

The high point is atop Britton Hill, named after early 1900s lumber mill baron William Henry Britton.  The surrounding Lakewood Park is on land donated by the family in 1976.

Where’s the second-lowest state highpoint in the country?  It’s complicated.  The official one, marked with a National Geodetic Survey benchmark monument, is the Ebright Azimuth in Delaware, at 448 (447.85) feet. 

Later work by the Delaware Geological Survey, however, found a point in a nearby mobile home park to be some two feet higher.

The wording on the official monument sign slides by all this conveniently by stating that “The Delaware Geological Survey through its relationship with the National Geodetic Survey has determined that this bench mark monument is in the vicinity of the highest natural elevation in the state.”

If you’re looking to visit every one of the highest state points in the US (and there are some folks who do) you’ll be happy to know that going to the Ebright Azimuth will fill your obligation in Delaware, according to the standards of Summitpost.org, a group that tracks such things.  You need not trespass on private property to find the marker in the trailer park, and another on a private road.  It is in fact discouraged.

And for a time it was thought that Delaware, not Florida, had the country’s lowest high point, simply because the game Trivial Pursuit had it wrong.