Greetings - I spent years on this board as a Colorado PLS, where I had lived since 1970, started as a surveyor in 1972, licensed in 1989, and worked to this day. I decided to try for my Oklahoma license, and am proud to now sign off as a CO & OK PLS.
I received great advice from Mark Mayer, on this board of course, where most of the advice offered is frankly the best available. (this is not to say anything bad about any other board, its just that the best available advice appears here, even if it also appears on other boards).
Much of my family still lives in Oklahoma, where I visit fairly often (ok, not as often as I'd like). We are descendants of the Potawatomi, I am also proud to say. Interestingly, many of the Potowatomi in Oklahoma "relocated" to "allotments", tracts of land surveyed by the Government for settlement of individual families, just like any homesteader.
I can not express how proud I am to be licensed in the great State of Oklahoma! I look forward to my first job.
Congrats.
I believe there are 38 or so federally recognized native nations that call Oklahoma home. I think that is more than any other state in the Union. Most, if not all, have both sovereign soil and trust lands. I have worked for the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Shawnee several times due to their proximity to Norman. They actually have a staff that keeps title work under their belt and 'in house'. A good bunch of folks to work with.
Seventy-seven counties and five statutory R/W widths can make a man get forgetful. Between Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory and the way Oklahoma was surveyed and allotted, there is a lot to know about retracements here. My career is just about as long as yours and I have spent 100% of it in Oklahoma....and I'm still learning! It has been a wonderful place for me to spend my career.
And I have kin in CO. I spent a good amount of my childhood in Buena Vista. I still have family strung up and down the front range from Ft. Collins all the way down to the Springs.
If there is ever anything you need, drop me a line. If I don't have an answer I darn sure know who does. Except for a few bums, I like to think we surveyors are tight down here. Welcome to our Great State.
Paden, thank you for the offer. I undoubtedly will ask your opinion when the opportunity arises. My first question is, what can I expect if i were to waltz into Shawnee, just for the fun of it, and try to find the original allotment of my family, under the name of "Striegel". Just a pipe dream. Have no hard plans to do that yet. I am a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation - its good to get your reply. I'. ve done at least a little survey work in each of the places you describe in CO. small world
warren ward PLS CO OK, post: 416913, member: 12536 wrote: I received great advice from Mark Mayer...
Passing the OK test was all you. But thanks for the kind word. Congratulations.
Warren, it's great to see you posting. Welcome back.
Nate
warren ward PLS CO OK, post: 416921, member: 12536 wrote: Paden, thank you for the offer. I undoubtedly will ask your opinion when the opportunity arises. My first question is, what can I expect if i were to waltz into Shawnee, just for the fun of it, and try to find the original allotment of my family, under the name of "Striegel". Just a pipe dream. Have no hard plans to do that yet. I am a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation - its good to get your reply. I'. ve done at least a little survey work in each of the places you describe in CO. small world
Looks like Carrie (Darling) Striegel got a chunk of a few pieces of the red dirt down here. That is the only Striegel I could find. The original "IA" (Indian Allotment) patent is probably what you're looking for due to its location. Let's see if I can upload these.
Yes, that looks like what I need! thanks again.
Not so long ago (thirty some years) I worked in a closed State. The BLM had turned everything over and moved West. Obtaining notes and patents meant calling and waiting weeks. When the package arrived and you started reading you were back on the phone getting the rest if what you need sent over. If you wanted to discuss or share your findings you could drive to the other Surveyor or fax them a copy. After faxing you had to walk them through the document to tell them what it said. A tedious and expensive process that would fall apart for any number of reasons.
Fast forward and look at what just happened. Tell me we aren't spoiled. Trust me when i say that is meant in a good way. It is also worth noting that this site plays no small part in building the relationships that make these exchanges possible..
thebionicman, post: 416982, member: 8136 wrote: Not so long ago (thirty some years) I worked in a closed State. The BLM had turned everything over and moved West. Obtaining notes and patents meant calling and waiting weeks. When the package arrived and you started reading you were back on the phone getting the rest if what you need sent over. If you wanted to discuss or share your findings you could drive to the other Surveyor or fax them a copy. After faxing you had to walk them through the document to tell them what it said. A tedious and expensive process that would fall apart for any number of reasons.
Fast forward and look at what just happened. Tell me we aren't spoiled. Trust me when i say that is meant in a good way. It is also worth noting that this site plays no small part in building the relationships that make these exchanges possible..
"Back in the day" I considered myself lucky to have an "inside" contact at the highway department. They not only had all the BLM plats on microfiche..they had the notes also! Hell, within a week or ten days (and the expense of taking someone to a good lunch) I could have info that would take six weeks to get here from New Mexico.
I think it was '78 or '79 and the New Mexico BLM office shipped all the Oklahoma records to our Dept. of Libraries Archives Div. It was still two or three years before they had it all categorized to where you could actually look up something. But it was still better than guessing.
Yes, we're spoiled. And I love it. 😉
Agree totally. This board is a great tool - it took a few minutes of my time to get what I needed, and without this information, I would have spent all day just trying to find out where to go to start looking for the BLM records, hoping, with limited expectations, that I eventually would find the right patent.
warren ward PLS CO OK, post: 416985, member: 12536 wrote: Agree totally. This board is a great tool - it took a few minutes of my time to get what I needed, and without this information, I would have spent all day just trying to find out where to go to start looking for the BLM records, hoping, with limited expectations, that I eventually would find the right patent.
My first attempt was a wash. I realized I had to spell Striegel correctly....;)
