This week the crew made a fairly remarkable find of a 90 year old construction bench mark.
We are retracing a 1924 Market Road and need to dig for some centerline P.I. monuments in the middle of a paved rural road. From previous calcs I have suspicions that there may have been a bust in the 1924 stationing so I wanted to gather as much evidence as possible before committing to generating a search point and cracking open the pavement to dig for centerline monuments that may be waaay down in the subgrade. So we went out with the old field notes and plan/profile to tie as many features still existing after being noted 90 years ago.
I’ve found that 1920s and 1930s stations on irrigation ditches that cross the road along with calls for fences, proposed drainage culvert stations etc. can be helpful in locking into stationing, along with bench marks set during the projects. From previous finds I can say with confidence that for construction bench marks the stationing was likely paced out down the center line, they clapped a 90 towards the tree and then paced the offset to the tree. Bench locations aren’t the best, but they can be helpful.
The bench marks they set in these parts are textbook, if your text was the 1898 International Correspondence School engineering text that contains this detail:
Here is an example of a local 1927 bench we found 4 years ago:
On this week’s project we found the bench at 96+75, 45’ right which differed somewhat from the 1927 bench in that they sawed off a low limb and then drove the spike into the remaining stob:
Our initial search for the next bench at 74+92, 65’ left appeared to be fruitless. No trees matched the notes below (14” Juniper, 65’ left):
…and it appeared that many years ago a fire had taken its toll on some of the older trees. We investigated a half dozen trees and then the guys went back to our estimated station and offset and found this beauty:
(we flagged it up after finding it)
The 1924 14” juniper had burned completely except for a small portion of the outer base, forming a sort of Crater Lake caldera of wood at ground level:
If it’s somewhat hard to discern in the above photo, this one shows the outline of the stump footprint:
We then took a quick shot on it to do some calcs in the office:
A unique find that makes me feel fortunate to work with guys who aren't of the “button pushing” ilk.
:good: :star:
> We then took a quick shot on it to do some calcs in the office:
>
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> A unique find that makes me feel fortunate to work with guys who aren't of the “button pushing” ilk.
That would pretty much pass for real land surveying in Texas.
Now that is interesting land surveying. Good job.
Excellent. This is the kind of story that more people need to hear as proof that ancient sources of data are still out there. We are in a world today where an $800 phone is a piece of junk worthy of a trash pile as soon as a $900 phone with two more abilities (that one in ten thousand might ever use) becomes available.
Excellent!
That's the kind of work that separates the men from the boys.
Nice work Mike! I really enjoyed seeing those.
Nice job Mike (and company)!
You should share this at our meeting on Wednesday!
Thanks Kevin, but it's the crew that was finding the groovy evidence whilst I was getting stuck in fences and losing eyeglasses and calculators in my vest as is expected of an office slug.
The results were fairly conclusive that no stationing errors were made along this segment in 1924. In the sketch below PI #1 is a calculated PI that I'm holding for now. At PI #2 no monument was set in 1924. PI #3 is the holy grail search, a steel bar. From plan, profile and field notes we tied (A)=irrigation ditch xing, (B)=Irrigation ditch xing, (C)= BM 74+92 65' left, (D)= Irrigation ditch xing and (E) = BM 96+74 45' right.
Holding 1, (A) was about 3 to 4 feet long in stationing (my notes are at work so I'm going on memory). However this ditch intersects at an acute angle and may have been reworked so I don't have a lot of confidence in the stationing; (C) was about 4 feet short in stationing (and 5' off in offset); (D) was maybe exactly on or maybe off as they gave two different locations to construct this crossing and E was within a foot (but 4 feet off in offset) Like C, it is a bench so nothing to hang your hat on.
However (B) was, as your generation says, "sick". It was within 2 feet of station 73+62. The level notes say it was a 12" wood culvert...
... and the profile shows it was in a fill area of 3 plus feet meaning they would have probably placed a pipe in the existing ditch and filled over it with no ditch realigning:
(note the profile doesn't have exact stationing meaning you either have to scale stationing or if the level notes are extant see if the feature is stationed. Also, the ditch isn't shown on the plans so the profile and level notes needed to be examined)
The irrigation ditch is no longer existing (a subdivision is on the south side of the road now) but we found the north end of a concrete pipe-likely an extension or replacement of the original wood pipe). By appearances it was perpendicular to the road so we tied centerline.
It'll be a week or so before we can muster up enough people to flag traffic for our centerline dig, so I'll report back if we find anything at PI #3. In the meantime, here's the folks who made this all possible-
(form the collection of Karen Gould Baker)
Ahh... Gould.
Well drag the field crew down to the PLSO meeting and reward them with an ice cold oat soda!
