Jerry, I thought you might find this interesting and helpful. In 2004 my friend John and I were looking for traces of an 1867 wagon road in the forest south of town. Due to logging in the 1920s and 1980s the landscape had changed dramatically and you could only guess at the location of the road. But fortunately a few years prior John had found what I’d call a TBM set in a 1908 USGS level run.
Here’s what john found:
He then wrote the USGS with the info on the tag and they sent him scans of the following book, A7829, containing the information about Benches set in the 1908 level run:
Cover:
Rough sketch of level run from Fort Klamath to Prineville (about 147 miles) with a side trip to Crater Lake:
Page 35 which has the BM 182 information:
Detail of BM 182 entry:
Entry says:
Shonquist Ranch 4.2 Miles NE of
East side of Road
South slope of Lava Butte
Yellow Pine tree 36 in. diam.
Spike in base of
Alum. Tag stamped 4450 BM 182
Apparently they set permanent benches every 5 miles +/- and temporary benches like BM 182 every 1 mile +/-. The Bench at the bottom of page 35, “F2” (PID PB0215), has been destroyed by highway work, but other monuments set in this 1908 run like E2 (PID PB0237) and M2 (PID QD0878) still survive. This bench run had permanent marks numbered A 2, B 2, C 2, et cetera up to R 2 at the courthouse in Prineville Oregon
The USGS also sent John scans of the 1914 Bulletin 556 which enumerates Bench Marks in various Quad maps, including some of the TBMs listed in the above document A7829.
On the top left of Page 92 is info for BMs 180, 181 and F2. 182 didn't make the cut in 1914.
With this information we’ve found a few more of the obscure TBMs and have been able to confirm where the old 1867 wagon road was located in 1908.
BM 199:
Thank you, Mike! I love posts like this!
Cool stuff!
Thanks Wendell. Bench Mark 199 is a textbook example of a bench, given this sketch from a 1898 International School of Correspondence survey book:
199 has a distinctive triangular blaze and the elevation 3276 scribed into it (the 3 being overgrown by the blaze healing over).
That's GREAT stuff Mike, and very well presented.
I have a collection of USGS Bulletins (some directly survey related some not), and sometimes they are VERY helpful (even indispensable at times) when doing Cadastral work here in the Great Basin.
Loyal
Mike,
This is very cool information. I worked on a FHWA project just north of Diamond Lake around 2004 and had a very tough time finding some USC&GS bench marks in that area due to the vegetation and movement of highway 138. I can't imagine finding nails and tags that would have been a hundred years old.
I have most state leveling books either digitally or hard copies and use them constantly. Jerry and I have been using the South Dakota leveling book for our searches in the Black Hills. I have not seen the actual leveling notes like you have shown here. Sometimes you have to find the right person to really get in and dig out this kind of information and are willing to help you.
Excellent photos and information.
Thanks,
Kurt
I agree with Wendell! These posts are why I like to frequent / lurk here. I wish there were more of them.
I have a silly question, why were y'all searching for an 1867 wagon road? Just curious.
Many, many thanks. This sort of thing really interests me.
Cheers,
Henry
Cool. Just think we get paid to do this stuff...
Now that's cool! Thanks for sharing......
Mike - Those photos are absolutely incredible! It never ceases to amaze me what might be out there. I have for the most part ignored the TBM's not thinking there would be anything significant there. I have found a couple of the copper nail/washer. A couple of years ago I found a bearing tree for a USGS 1890's bench mark. Here is the link.
It's the great research and field work which makes these amazing recoveries possible.
Thanks for posting.
> I have a silly question, why were y'all searching for an 1867 wagon road? Just curious.
Darrell, it is a hobby that combines my love of local history and surveying. BM 182 involved working with other volunteers for a Forest Service “Passports In Time” (PIT) project to search for traces of an 1853 “Lost” wagon train that wandered through this area. The 1867 Huntington Wagon Road, built be the military, likely followed the tracks of the 1853 wagon train which was comprised of 200 wagons, 1000 people and 1000s of cattle. The road's location in this area south of Lava Butte is roughly sketched on the 1869 GLO plat of the township:
BM 182 was found 660' north of the SE corner of Section 23
Also, an 1885 county road was surveyed along the route of the previous two roads and they blazed and scribed trees along the alignment. The PIT project was hoping to find a definite trace of the old road to do some archeological studies along it. Problem is, the huge old growth Ponderosa Pine forest the original roads went through:
A road winding through old growth Ponderosa Pine forest
… was clear cut in 1922 and lots of skid roads and logging rail roads obliterated the trace of the road
The road’s route on the south side of Lava Butte has been altered considerably by the 1922 work which only left a couple trees standing:
Looking from the southeast towards Lava Butte sometime in mid 1920s
I wish I could take credit for a recovery like this Carl, but it was John’s resourcefulness and intuitiveness that figured out this piece of the puzzle. He’s a retired repairman for National Cash Register and has been beating the brush for nearly 50 years finding old historic trails, ghost towns, cemeteries et cetera. Years before we met he found BM 182 and contacted USGS to get the notes on it. It was a big “Eureka!” moment for me when he showed me this information and I realized we could get the entire set of notes to help in our search for dozens of miles. The guy I talked to at USGS was emensly helpfull when I asked for addtional pages of the Bench descriptions. And he also informed me about the 1914 bulletin.
But it is indeed another good thing to know about and keep in your land surveying knowledge quiver. The location of one of these old benches may be the silver bullet someday for a surveyor needing to locate a long gone road called for in a deed.
Beautiful... 🙂
Nice Work Mike and John. Thanks for sharing!
