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1920 wooden posts and rusty iron
Shevlin Park is a 600+ acre park just west of Bend that was deeded to the city in 1920 in the memory of Tom Shevlin. Shevlin was the son of a timber baron, a 1902-1905 rock star football player for Yale (the Elis were 42-2-1 during his stint), international playboy and in 1915 he was in charge of starting up operations of the big Shevlin-Hixon lumber mill in central Oregon. In November of 1915 he returned to whatever eastern state Yale is located in to coach the Yale Eleven. Caught pneumonia and died in December 1915.
The park runs along two plus miles of the Tumalo Creek canyon and until recently there was no known survey for it. Then a local surveyor was retracing the boundary of a private tract that borders a portion of the park and found that the Parks and Recreation district had a copy of the original 1920 36Û X 24Û linen tracing of the survey by local legendary surveyor Robert Gould.
Low resolution snip of the 74 meg scan:
The survey had point numbers for the 41 angle points along the boundary along with a note that states:
Û? and a table with the courses between the angle points:
ItÛªs rare to see a survey from the 1920s round these parts with such a proclamation of monumentation.
The 2016 survey along a portion of the park boundary shows they were finding remnants of these wooden posts along with a host of various types of iron.
So the dog and I went for a walk this weekend to search for some of them. Points 23, 24, 32 and 33 on either side of the canyon, just north of Fremont Meadow (where Capt. John C. Fremont, guide Kit Carson, mountain man Thomas ÛÏBroken HandÛ Fitzpatrick, surveyor Charles Preuss and 32 others camped on Dec. 2 1843 on their road trip from the Oregon trail down to California. Fremont reported they observed a full moon rainbow that night. For what it’s worth, weed was not illegal in the Territory at that time).
At #23 we found an iron pipe, but no 4X4 post:
#24:
We then crossed the canyon and found #32 and #33
#32:
#32 detail (what is this scrap from? It has a small tab of iron on it):
#33:
#33 detail:
All in all a fun day of exploring. Shevlin Park used to be one of my favorite places but it has been loved to death with the influx of about 70,000 people in Bend since I moved here. This is a new way to revisit it… bushwhacking the perimeter away from the crowds marching up and down the creek trails. A pocket full of coordinates, a handheld GPS, an unleashed dog and a camera.
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