Turns out I was mistaken.
In April of 2014 I had retraced most of a "fill-in" transferred railroad scrip block that was originally surveyed in 1884-1885.
In July, I had retraced a 30 square mile 1881 railroad block that was a half mile east of the previous block. I was a little apprehensive about the block because we found only a few interior section corners. Fortunately we found almost all of the corners called for on the block lines and they fit pretty darn good with each other, the few interior sections corners and the occasional occupation evidence between the 2 or 3 property owners in the area. Survey plats were issued and things were built. Expensive things.
In the half mile between the two different blocks are some very narrow surveys that attempt to exhaust the available land that was believed to exist between the two. It took them a couple of tries to get everything correctly located and exhausted.
A glimpse of the 1886 working sketch
(Close but not identical to ground conditions)
Blue line is proposed easement.
Up until this week, I really had no need to tie in anything in the half mile strip. Now, some access easements were needed for the previously staked expensive things and it was time to tie in the strip and the east side of the 1884-1885 block.
Long story short: 160 foot overlap between the strip and the 1881 railroad block. Only one monument on the common boundary line which was correct for the north-south line of the filler strip and correct for an east-west section line of the 1881 block, but not on any of either's calculated corners.
7 hours of retracing, re-evaluating, second guessing my every decision. I was getting a nugget of an idea that I was facing an overlapping description. I went back to check some of my previous research and can not tell you how happy I was to see a previous survey by Otha Draper from 1962 that showed an overlap by the filler strip's patented line onto the senior railroad block. I've heard of Draper but haven't followed him before. It looks like we both came to a similar conclusion but my amount of overlap was greater.
I'm feeling kind of beat down today after all that but pretty happy with the results and glad I didn't have to have that conversation with the client about the expensive improvements being in the wrong section.
Now I can get started with the rest of today's projects. :excruciating: