A surveying decision..
Many years ago I did a survey adjacent of the Cimarron River in Kingfisher Co., OK. The property consisted of a little less than 5,000 acres and spread out across almost ten sections. It was about half cultivated pasture and cross-timber as it approached the river. This was back in the days of total stations so, needless to say, it took a while to complete.
The northern boundaries had county roads and the section corners were predictably perpetuated with various referenced pins but the further south one traveled the roads and pasture gave way to around three full sections that had almost no evidence of surveyors since the original survey. The difficulty of the work was compounded by the fact the original GLO survey was actually performed from N to S and closed on a meander line at the river. Back then I thought of it as an interesting challenge. Nowadays I’d probably call it a pain-in-the-butt. Anyway what few fences there were in the buckland were of convenience and of little value as survey evidence.
I had used the original surveys, what little evidence I found and a lot of just plain guessing to come up with “probable search locations” of corners pertinent to the survey. We dove into the area running on traverse lines to search. Now a lot of the original monuments were either posts or pits and mounds, neither of which I expected to find.
There was one particular corner common to four sections that I really needed to tie everything together. We eventually wound up there and found only mature cedars with a spattering of cow bones. I reluctantly expanded my search area from “right here somewhere” to rooting around through the cedars in hopes of finding something…anything.
I didn’t find it, it was one of the crew. But nestled in an old cedar that had assuredly grown around it stood a weathered railroad tie buried about three feet in the ground. There was no railroad close nor had there ever been. There was no other occupational evidence of any kind. Just this old tie that had been nearly consumed by a seventy year old cedar. We hacked a line into the brush and shot it. I wasn’t really too excited, but we were there…and it was the only evidence that a human had ever been there.
Later on after I “threw everything up on the screen” I realized the tie lay on a north-south line that fit amazingly well (within a few feet) with everything I had found to the north. What troubled me was that if I considered it a section corner it was almost 1 chain north of where I would have calculated. This kind of blew my calcs out of the water because everything else was fitting within 15 links or so as compared to the original survey.
Long story short I relied on the tie and completed the survey. It really didn’t make much difference because it was an interior corner of the property, more than a mile from the closest deed boundary.
The crew hand that had found the tie eventually obtained his license. At the time he was critical of me for honoring “just a post”. Over the years when we would see each other we would still chat about it. He has admitted he isn’t so critical of my decision as he was years ago.
I’ve discussed this with seminar classes over the years and found an almost distinct 50-50 on opinions. Some say they would have used the tie, and others say they would have gone with a protracted location.
What do you think? Was this tie a surveyed location or just a proverbial “goat stake”?
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