Some say they don't really exist.?ÿ Some of us are willing to search.?ÿ The subject being stones set as section corner and quarter corner monuments many decades ago that fall in road right-of-way today.?ÿ Had fun locating another one this morning, a quarter corner.?ÿ BTW, for those of us in PLSSia this is a common issue.
Today's adventure revolved a stone last seen in 1935.?ÿ At that time surveyors from the fairly-recently created state highway commission were planning a new route that would deviate away from the previous main route.?ÿ The stone in question had been set in 1898 by the county surveyor/engineer.?ÿ It was placed next to a remnant of the original GLO stone set in 1866-67.?ÿ The apparent location was near the center line of an existing county road, first approved in the 1870's.?ÿ During the 1898 survey the original stone would have been fun to find as it was lowered during road improvement in the 1870's and was found half a chain away from an equidistant point between section corners..?ÿ Finding the larger stone placed in 1898 by the survey crew in 1935 had to be a ton of fun as the road surface had been raised about two and a half feet from natural grade, probably in the early 1900's using horses and slips/tumblebugs to move the dirt into place.?ÿ No backhoe available for those guys.?ÿ Fortunately, the highway guys in 1935 did some excellent measuring and made very good notes, which are available online today.
I had never worked with the backhoe operator that was there today.?ÿ So we started off with a good chat about how this was to be a very slow process with careful raking of the bucket teeth to loosen no more than two to three inches of material at a time with very careful scooping of the loose material to remove it from our 10-foot by 10-foot dig zone that was centered on the expected location.?ÿ The fellow did a great job of taking care.?ÿ Too many operators think they must dig to China in the next five minutes.?ÿ Finally, we heard the scraping of steel on stone and he could feel it as contact was made.?ÿ There was no doubt but what we had found it and it happened to be very close to the projected location.?ÿ I placed several bars around it with one angled such that the tip of the bar was about eight inches higher directly above the center of the stone.?ÿ We nailed down that location, then I began to start packing in soil around the stone such that there was no chance of him moving the stone/bar while refilling our pit and compacting it as much as possible.?ÿ As he was in the final couple of passes leveling things back out a county rock truck arrived to dump a load of crushed limestone over the area to allow for the expected settling that will occur over the next few months.
After we were done I complimented the backhoe operator on his patience.?ÿ That's when I learned this was a piece of cake compared to a project he had worked on nearly 20 years earlier.?ÿ He spent several days assisting the Kansas Bureau of Investigation is searching for a body that allegedly had been placed in a certain field on a farm currently owned by a former MLB player.?ÿ He had worked an area about an acre in size to an average depth of three feet over about three days of digging very slowly an inch or two deep.?ÿ Every time he set the bucket he was certain that would be the time he would be hitting something he really didn't want to find.?ÿ He still wasn't at liberty to discuss exactly what was found or not found, but, I'm fairly certain it wasn't Jimmy Hoffa.
Nice story, happy ending.?ÿ
Many years ago I was on a survey crew assigned to recover several section corners in Rock County, Wisconsin. We were assigned to a county crew that had a Gradeall machine. I still remember that operator could move a pebble if you asked him and more importantly not move one if necessary. Probably the some of the most interesting surveying I've done. I recall that one section corner was 12' down in an intersection fill that took two days to find.?ÿ
I cannot imagine the anxiety that an operator/crew goes through recovering a body. Its been six years since the Oso landslide where 42 bodies were recovered.?ÿ?ÿ
Nice to find those dandy stones!?ÿ ?ÿBut when the stone goes away... whats left??ÿ Here is a picture of a stain left in this very sandy soil.?ÿ Backtracked old record measurements from mostly fence information in the area to get to this dig location.?ÿ The old town chairman said a lot of fill was placed here and he never remembered seeing a stone.?ÿ I think the stone got knocked out by frost action and was eventually grabbed by a road grader.?ÿ?ÿ
?ÿ ?ÿI'm lucky in that the default bucket on the county machine they send when I need a corner dug has a wide SMOOTH edge.?ÿ ?ÿ With that edge, the operator can skim an inch at a time if needed.?ÿ Any wood post evidence has a better chance of surviving if a smooth edge is used.?ÿ ?ÿ This picture is a different location but shows the smooth edged bucket.
Quite a few years ago, a small town in IA needed to know their exact city limits boundaries. Very few surveys of record and almost no lot corners or block corners with monumentation. The original plat of the town from the 1800??s showed the surveyor set limestones at the centerline intersections of streets every 3 or 4 blocks. The streeets appeared to be built up over the years (now sealcoated) with side ditches for drainage. I convinced the city to hire a local backhoe guy to excavate for us. Our first dig found nothing. The second intersection we were down about 6 feet and were going to give it up when he scraped the side of the square piece of limestone which was about 3 feet down. From there on we found several more, maybe 7 out of 10 and were able to lay out all of the original town from there. Very satisfying.?ÿ
Only used a backhoe one time whilst searching for a critical stone on a nearly abandoned County road intersection in the late '70s.?ÿ It was in sandblow country and original Section corners were few and far between, but definitive when found as there were no natural rocks, just sand and gravel.?ÿ Being the County Surveyor with an unlimited budget we searched nearby and found three original stones up to 3 miles away and proportioned in a search coordinate which fell near the center of the intersection and fence remnants.?ÿ Since according to maintenance records the grade had been altered by adding fill over the decades I figured the stone was still there, although now deep underground.?ÿ I finagled a backhoe crew for a morning and we dug for three hours ultimately creating a nine foot deep pit (not OSHA approved) which encompassed the entire road intersection.?ÿ Searched, found nothing.?ÿ I challenge you to claim I did not make a best effort.?ÿ
Was it a good idea, nope; I got called into the County Director of Public Works at the end of the month when they reconcile expenditures & Director Stanton threw the bills for the backhoe excavation, filling in the hole with compaction equipment & gravel replacement.?ÿ He told me in no uncertain terms I was not to request assistance from maintenance without prior clearance while conducting my duties.?ÿ He made it clear that when conducting monument searches?ÿ I such exercise only "ordinary effort" and not engage in expensive witch hunts.?ÿ Of course I acquiesced and the meeting ended amicably with a handshake and him saying "Mike, you're a bulldog, I admire your attempt to find the original corner, but do a cost-benefit analysis before bringing in the calvary."
do a cost-benefit analysis before bringing in the calvary.
Certainly before calling in Golgotha, but also before calling in a military unit.
Good job there Hole Digger..err...HC.?ÿ A lot of old stone monuments are still there.?ÿ It's just a case of how bad do you really want to put eyes on it.
When I was with the highway department my 'area' was north of I-40 west of I-35, including the Baja (panhandle).?ÿ I had a PC working for me that could talk almost any district road maintenance super into 'loaning' us a back hoe and operator.?ÿ While there were a few stones that we never saw, we found most of them we went after.?ÿ Burying them during initial road construction was a fairly common practice.?ÿ
I bet we uncovered a dozen of them along the Chickaskia River bottom south of Tonkawa, up there close to your stomping grounds.?ÿ The bottom has flooded regularly over the years and the alluvium is a lot deeper than one would think.?ÿ We had some 1920's notes that stated one stone had been found buried 3' and an iron post place at the surface.?ÿ A 1935 recovery during road construction said they found the post, but didn't bother with the stone.?ÿ We figured the post was long gone and started excavating.?ÿ At about 5' we were fixing to call it quits when the operator snagged something...the top of a very rusty 3" iron post.?ÿ At a depth of about 10' we found the top of the stone.?ÿ One wouldn't think that 7' of silt could have been deposited in 60 or 70 years of seasonal flooding from that creek, but it had.
Even though a lot of them have been buried, one has to have a good eye as to whether the roadbed has been "filled or cut" over the years.?ÿ And remember, diesel is our friend. 😉
?ÿ
The clam bucket is great, once you get past the tough crust in the top four to six inches.?ÿ Have used them many times.
Have found only one remnant of a post in all the digging we have ever done.?ÿ They may survive better in a drier climate.?ÿ Soil acidity is an issue as well.?ÿ Most of our soils around here are high clay content with excessive shrink-swell qualities.
I've heard stories from southwest Kansas of very deep original stones due to the Dust Bowl deposits.?ÿ Where one place might have soil removed another might gain 20 feet of windblown silt.
Speaking of cost/benefit, that reminds me of a DOT bridge project in the neighboring county over 20 years ago.?ÿ The brought in traffic control, backhoes, etc. and dug down through the existing busy highway to a depth of more than four feet to recover monumentation from the 1930's and before.?ÿ Then they had to fill, recompact and repave each area excavated.?ÿ They also dug at 13 other locations in the adjoining sections.?ÿ I don't think they would volunteer to do that to help Ol' Pop Skatwitz deed off a three-acre tract to his daughter and put it precisely in the correct location.
The deepest dig by hand we ever did was around six feet to the top of a bar.?ÿ We had great horizontal ties from the last crew to find it many years earlier.?ÿ This was a case of fill being added to make a longer ramp for a road to cross a railroad.?ÿ Horse and buggy could do one thing.?ÿ Long trailers needed a great deal of help to be able to use the route.?ÿ I can remember some of those old grade crossings that were incredibly steep.
You beat HC and me to that one.
I could of sworn I spelled that correctly but it turns out it's spelled cavalry. Mea culpa, my mind is fading as the years pass.
