Looking for some information on a set of old 1953 plans. Mostly hunting up the alignment data but came across this standard sheet for the ROW markers that we all have seen in Oklahoma.
They were instructed to set them inside the right of way line with the back of the monument on line. How many have shot the center and kept on trucking?
Most, around my age anyway, know that sometimes these were set by unlicensed contractors so we never really lend them a lot of weight in our decisions. We tend to look for original survey alignment points. I've found many of the RP (radius points) well away from any construction still in place.
Deral
That is also the year they built one of the first bridges across the South Canadian River on Hwy 34 at Camargo, OK.
I've learned from experience to not even waste my effort to take a shot on one!
Here is one in good shape, set in Creek County about 1960
This one is a little worse for wear. Freeze thaw over 60 years has taken its toll. 
I found the shards of concrete around this one.
And this is fairly typical of most of them.
A few turned out to be within about 3 feet of their supposed location. Most were more like 5 feet.
> A few turned out to be within about 3 feet of their supposed location. Most were more like 5 feet.
That was a lot of effort and expense to install something of so little value. I wonder why they bothered?
Being a '53 model myself, compared to most of those markers, I'm lookin' mighty fine.
Ours are 6"x6" and have a C imprinted in the concrete. The slang term is either C-mon or CHC monument. CHC=California Highway Commission.
I have found some and they have actually fit within reason most of the time (less than a half foot). Sometimes they are all we have. I did a Survey on an old freeway at Marconi Avenue. That freeway had centerline monuments on the R/W maps but they were destroyed by a concrete median divider project many years ago besides it is extremely dangerous to go into the middle of any Freeway let alone that location which is narrow and is the middle of an S turn (known locally as the Marconi Curve). We found those concrete monuments on both sides and they actually fit very well so I used them as the best evidence of the R/W location.
A caveat is my sampling of those monuments is fairly limited so I don't have an overall feel for how good or bad they are in general. My understanding is they were set by the contractor from Surveyor stakes. I have always used the brass pin in the center. A friend came from Illinois and he said his boss always told him to use the backside like Deral's detail.
Our Forest boundaries are marked by 4"x4" concrete monuments (4' long) with a brass cap on top in a lot of cases.
I have found about 1 in 20 or so cracked or even shed all of their concrete down to ground level. The BC is attached to a central rebar so the monument is still there. I think maybe occasionally they mixed the concrete to wet and that one didn't perform well but most of them are still as solid as the day they were set.
Frank Lermond, LS577, set a bunch of 6"x6" concrete monuments for his timber company employer and all of those I have seen are still intact. They are good quality concrete.
> That was a lot of effort and expense to install something of so little value. I wonder why they bothered?
Well, the minimum standards allow it...
245:15-13-2. Minimum Standards
c. 13 (E) Rural tracts of 40 acres or more in rough or tree covered terrain where the corners of the tract must be connected with short traverse lines because of poor visibility between the corners of the tract, the allowable closure error is 1:5,000 and the allowable positional error is plus or minus 3.0 feet.
On this same job were many 6" concrete monuments with brass disks, set to about 6" above ground level by the USCOE in 1967. About half of them were in great shape, the other half disintegrated down to ground level.
The locations of RW markers were 'staked' by OHD (Oklahoma Highway Dept.) field crews by "station-offset" from the project prints. This usually happened near the end of the project (after the centerline control had been virtually decimated). The locations were staked with offsets at times and sometimes not.
The contractor that placed them was usually the fence sub-contractor, placing them at the same time they built the fence. The inaccuracy of where they actually wound up is a testament to the process.
I've seen some that were close, and some that were not so close. Even when I was an ODOT employee we put little or no stock in their locations. I think the original idea was a good one, but the execution of getting them in the ground suffered.
I agree that they were a good idea but just poorly implemented. But when you find these you usually find a fence, just like the photos show. So we may not use them but the landowners seem to rely on them. Their lack of positional accuracy is really not that big a deal because they are along a highway and not between two fueding land owners.
On current projects we require all right of way markers to be set by a PLS at the end of the job. With GPS now then it's possible to set them with a lot of certainty compared to fence contractors using the centerline and offets as done in the past.
In our area we have found ODOT control to be of very high accuracy and they did very good work if you can find any original controlling points. I use their alignment maps in conjunction with their right of way plans usually to begin my searches when working along old highways.
R-O-W markers versus Bush Hog mowers...not a pretty site for either one...and the tractor driver.
>> The contractor that placed them was usually the fence sub-contractor, placing them at the same time they built the fence. The inaccuracy of where they actually wound up is a testament to the process.
Ain't that the truth. Long ago I was trying to locate the R/W for a Washington State freeway adjacent to the Columbia River, without much luck. Rodman was poking around the river's edge in its gorge, two hundred feet below the freeway, and found *dozens* of concrete R/W markers, still bundled to their pallets. The contractor obviously had thrown them down there, out of sight, out of mind.
