Did you know?

The Rocky Mountain News was a long running paper started in the boom town of Denver (previously Kansas Territory) that was started by a frontier proprietor named William N. Byers. Grand County is in NW Colorado, west slope, with the county seat being "hot Sulphur Springs" named after several natural mineral springs. there is Byers Canyon, Byers Avenue and Byers Peak nearby. Prior to launching the upstart newpaper, Byers was a federal surveyor assigned to layout sections through what is now Grand County along the "Grand River" - now Colorado River. While laying out sections, Byers came across these mineral springs and somehow managed to "purchase" the springs from the local Ute Indians. (the Utes dispute that any such purchase took place). He also laid out a Town on paper (Hot Sulphur Springs). The Rocky Mountain News lasted over one hundred years before folding fairly recently. The Town of Hot Sulphur Springs and the mineral springs are still populated county seat and tourist destination. Byers' name still adorns a Peak, a Canyon, and an Avenue that he probably placed himself on the original plat. How was he as a surveyor? A lot of his stones are still there. There is a 1/4 corner that his notes say he set in 1868, but it falls in the side of the canyon named after him. to the best of my knowledge, no human being could actually occupy the corner without a jet pack, but, who knows, he likely had a hell of a chaining crew.

The southern boundary of Iowa is curved enough to see on a good map and is nowhere near a parallel of latitude.?ÿ The leading theory of the reason is that Sullivan ran the line from the Old NW Corner of Missouri east to the river without ever changing the magnetic declination (then called variation) set on his compass, whereas there is actually a significant change.

The 5th Principal Meridian where it crosses Iowa was surveyed by William Burt in 1836-37 using his very new solar compass, probably the most important line run by that time with the instrument.

When the sections near the Iowa-Minnesota boundary were marked, deputy surveyor Ira Cook recalled

Most of the land had been taken up by squatters ... .?ÿ This township 100 consists of five full sections north and south, but the sixth section was only about two or three chains.?ÿ One day in running up one of my range lines I struck a man's farm.?ÿ It was partly in Iowa and partly in Minnesota. When I was through with running my lines, his cultivated land was situated in two states, four townships, and six sections.

Quote from Lowell Stewart, Public Land Surveys, 1935.

Roger Maris, Lawrence Welk, and Louis L'amour are some of the more well-known people from North Dakota.

@bill93

An old couple, in Minnesota, had their property surveyed. The surveyor tells them; I have some bad news, your property is actually in North Dakota. They said; that's a relief! I don't think we could take another Minnesota winter!

(It's a lot funnier, when you tell with an accent ;~)

Not my home state, but Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, according to Garrison Keiler, author of "Lake Wobegon Days", was a "survey mistake".?ÿ

?ÿ

I could have sworn I just posted a reply to a post in this thread and now the post and my reply are both missing.?ÿ Did we enter the Twilight Zone?

It had to do with an oddity with the Florida/Alabama line.

I guess I was replying to a post that was deleted by the poster.

Florida has the longest coastline (1,197 statute miles) in the contiguous United States, with 825 miles of accessible beaches to enjoy.

@holy-cow

I apologize. It was me. I thought my post might not be appropriate.

@field-dog

I loved it.?ÿ Got me to go searching for how this state line came into existence.?ÿ Found that if you build a bridge, we'll give up two miles of our State to you.?ÿ What a deal?!?!

@warren-ward-pls-co-ok

Where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

?ÿ

Sounds like my home area.

?ÿ

Posted by: @warren-ward-pls-co-ok

I recall he "claimed" the area was surveyed from the borders inward, and when they came together there was less Minnesota than there was map, so they overlapped the maps and Lake Wobegon ended up on the bottom layer, and that's why you don't find it.

@holy-cow 10 years ago I was a Safety Observer for the BP oil spill cleanup.?ÿ My stretch of beach for a while was from the FloraBama (a bar on the Florida/Alabama line) to the Perdido Pass bridge.?ÿ That would be the location of the bridge of which you speak.?ÿ I was there for 7 months and went into the FloraBama twice.?ÿ One of those was for coffee when it was so blasted cold.

Andy

@andy-bruner

?ÿI guess it made sense for Alabama to build the bridge because there is another bridge that goes to the little strip of land to the north that is in Alabama after you cross the Perdido Pass bridge.

?ÿ

Wait.?ÿ You used Florida and so blasted cold in the same paragraph.?ÿ That must qualify as some variety of oxymoron.

Georgia is home to the largest piece of exposed granite in the world, Stone Mountain.?ÿ Australia's Ayre's Rock is larger, but it's not granite.?ÿ Georgia is also home to the more saltwater marsh than any other state in the union.?ÿ We produce more pecans than any other state but the pecan tree is not a native.?ÿ From memory (and I have been wrong before) the first pecan trees were brought here from Texas in the 1800's.

Andy

@holy-cow On the beach in 28 degrees, 90 percent humidity with a 20 mph wind and no place to hide is COLD.

Posted by: @holy-cow

Cold is relative to what you are used to.

@bill93 I agree.?ÿ And to me anything below 32 degrees is COLD.

During the Great Depression more than one million Oklahoma residents migrated to California in search of work.?ÿ The migration was chronicled in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.?ÿ?ÿThis mass displacement of humanity effectively raised the average IQ of both states.?ÿ