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Another Triumph of Records Management!
The task was simple enough. A client had bought two 20-acre lots in a 500-acre subdivision that I had laid out and platted in 1995 and he was planning to have the lots separately fenced. Yes, I could find the corners and mark the lines for fencing.
All of the rod and cap markers I had set to mark the boundaries of the two lots and showed on the subdivision plat remained in place except for one. That had fallen victim to a new driveway sometime in the last few months. It happens. Rod and Cap No. 469 shown above is now 21 years old and is for all practical purposes in as good a shape as when set. The punchmark is unmistakable and the stamping legible.
In reviewing the file, I discovered that about twenty years ago I had marked the common line of the two lots for fencing that had never gotten built, setting 5/8-inch rebars with punchmarks at various convenient points along the line, all in drill holes in the rocky ground. That was a simplication, i.e. to just find the old rebar line stakes and verify that they were as accurately set as I had thought them to be twenty years ago.
Two side lines remained, but along one I found steel tee posts alongside 5/8-inch rebars with punchmarks. Lo and behold, I had set those also. I haven’t found the record of that yet, but the markers were obviously mine. They were 5/8-inch rebars driven into drill holes with a rebar driver that rounded the edges of the top over exactly as mine does and had a punchmark at the center of the bar exactly as I leave rods I find and set. It’s sort of funny that the combination would be unique, but it is.
I’d like to tell you that I had already set line stakes on the other side lot line, but that was only partially true. I did find a rebar about 150 ft. back along the line running from the front corner. I set those thoughout the subdivision (after platting) to show prospective buyers the direction in which the lines ran and to give the future lot owners a clue as to where to brush out the lines that ran for about a quarter mile back from the road on average.
These days, the entire effort would have been one Star*Net project showing all of the original survey and subsequent work connected to a common control network and I wouldn’t have needed to scrounge through various project files. I guess I didn’t imagine twenty years ago that I would still be returning for more of the same just as the Texas Indians who left this scraper or preform on the ground about 8,000 years ago probably didn’t think that anyone would ever think it unusual.
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