I spent the last couple of days in Wilbarger County which is the last Texas county on US 183 before the highway disappears into Oklahoma without a trace. Much of Wilbarger was originally laid out in large blocks of 1900 vara by 1900 vara sections (that's approximately 80 chains for the PLSS-minded among us) according to surveys made in the late 1850s by virtue of stacks of land scrip. Nearly all of that scrip was issued to various railroad companies with the Houston & Texas Central accounting for the lion's share of the pile.
In 1880, after all of the land scrip had been located, Wilbarger had about 128 residents once all the buffalo had been hunted to near extinction and the remaining bones had been picked off the prairie and hauled away in wagons to be sold by the ton.
Oil discoveries in the 1920s meant that Vernon, the county seat of Wilbarger, suddenly had all the trappings of modern life execept for cable TV. There were car dealerships, lots of new houses, multistory buildings with some style familiar from other more established places and there was the new County Courthouse in an elegant neo-classical style completed in 1928.
I'd driven up to research a couple of matters, one of which dealt with the creation of certain public roads in the county. I take it for granted that in most rural counties the records of the proceedings of Commissioners Court establishing and/or altering public roads in the county will be a heavy lift to locate and interpret. Road names change over time and are typically originally described by the long-extinct names of their endpoints. Not so in Wilbarger County.
In Wilbarger, there is an index to the Road Minutes of Commissioners Court that is organized by Block and Section. So, if you're interested in the history of the opening, width, or classification of all roads touching a certain section in a certain block, it's a matter of just a few minutes to find the proper page and note all of the entries in the Road Minutes that pertain to that section. In PLSSia, it is probably even easier, but the collection of grids that the individual blocks form act as a coordinate system similar to the PLSS to easily describe road locations.
It was far too easy. I'm not complaining, just marveling at how much easier everything must be in PLSSia with the checkerboard system to organize nearly everything. Oh, here is what a typical ranch headquarters looks like in Texas. It's just down the street from where Roy Orbison was born.
The plss has ASPECTS that are easy... Less title gaps, or overlaps, in the subdivision. A "subdivision" 6 miles x 6 miles. Javad's gps really shines in this environment.
However, the "book of the law" has gotten lost, and occupation and title, sometimes don't agree.
Have you heard of the 1320 club?
N
Kent McMillan, post: 410878, member: 3 wrote: Oh, here is what a typical ranch headquarters looks like in Texas.
Well that sure zoomed right past me. Ranch headquarters? I have always thought a ranch headquarters was on the ranch like Ben Cartwright's spread on the Ponderosa.
Kent McMillan, post: 410878, member: 3 wrote: ..It was far too easy. I'm not complaining, just marveling at how much easier everything must be in PLSSia with the checkerboard system to organize nearly everything..
I was in Vernon once.....but then a relative wired me enough money for a bus ticket...:)
We like our PLSS record system. Once upon a time I spent a month one week in Wheeler and Hemphill Counties in Texas chasing oil leases...you Texans can keep your "super secret" abstracting and records methods. About the only thing we don't keep at the courthouse under "Section, Township and Range" is the probates; and that's another story altogether.
Now that I think about it...I had always imagined the surly disposition of everyone I ran into there was due to the fact my truck had no front plate with an Okie plate on the rear. After getting to know a few folks, I realize now all Texans are just grumpy with how difficult they make things in general. A good example is just how far it is between bathrooms with running water on those lonely Farm to Market Roads. 😉
paden cash, post: 410887, member: 20 wrote: A good example is just how far it is between bathrooms with running water on those lonely Farm to Market Roads.
And you call yourself a surveyor? Aren't there any bushes of trees out there? 😉
FL/GA PLS., post: 410889, member: 379 wrote: And you call yourself a surveyor? Aren't there any bushes of trees out there? 😉
Bushes and truck doors are great for whizzing. Ask anybody our age that takes "statins" how they feel about taking care of "other" things with no facilities....:(
[USER=20]@paden cash[/USER]
😉
Road record info can vary drastically from one county to another. It's either easy to find and rather complete or it ain't to be found except in bits and pieces.
Kent McMillan we all wish it was easy like you imagine... Long standing occupation trumps the "paint by numbers" folk.
but in the West the record keeping is usually pretty good. You should campaign for Mapping and Record Keeping standards
In California the grantor/grantee indexes are by name and range of years only.
It would've been nice if they would've indexed it by STR but then most of the PLTS wasn't surveyed until well after statehood.
Peter Ehlert, post: 410910, member: 60 wrote: You should campaign for Mapping and Record Keeping standards
In the rural counties, I'm thrilled just to find the records on the shelves and a cooperative staff willing to get them out of cold storage if they aren't. Large format copiers tend not to be present.
After a half an hours worth of research, I had identified the various orders of Commissioners Court that established all of the county roads in the vicinity of my area of interest except for one. These road mostly came into existence between 1909 and 1913. The next day, after scouring the public records for any trace of the final road in question, I found the final bit of evidence that answered the question, something that had been the subject of an elaborate proceeding of Commissioners Court about ten years earlier.
It was in the form of a three-ring binder in the County Judge's office, except the judge didn't know that he had it. Evidently his predecessor in office had failed to provide any information related to various matters and the binder with the official inventory was one of them.
Fortunately for me, I was able to locate one of the former judge's assistants and when I described the map and list that supposedly existed, she thought she had seen it and was willing to go look in the judge's office. Lo and behold, it was still there, but had never been recorded.
One can wish for record keeping standards in one hand and do something else in his hat and my money would be on the hand not filling up faster.
FL/GA PLS., post: 410886, member: 379 wrote: Well that sure zoomed right past me. Ranch headquarters? I have always thought a ranch headquarters was on the ranch like Ben Cartwright's spread on the Ponderosa.
I doubt very much that Ben Cartwright had more than a couple of sections for his boys to ride around on. The rest was probably public land that he was renting. The W.T. Waggoner Estate's ranch was Texas-sized.
I don't know that the PLSS can be any easier that the Colonial States. All that we have to do is follow stone walls! The hardest part is figuring out where in the wall the property line lays.
😀
Kent McMillan, post: 410923, member: 3 wrote: I doubt very much that Ben Cartwright had more than a couple of sections for his boys to ride around on. The rest was probably public land that he was renting. The W.T. Waggoner Estate's ranch was Texas-sized.
"The Ponderosa was the fictional setting for Bonanza. According to the first episode ("Mr. Henry Comstock") filmed after the pilot, it was a thousand square mile (640,000 acre or 2,600 km2) ranch on the shores of Lake Tahoe, nestled high in the Sierra Nevada, with a large ranch house in the center of it."
See? If you all had better records and more bathrooms you wouldn't be so grumpy all the time.
The PLSS is the most intuitive system I've encountered. It lends itself well to disposal and maintenance of title. In less developed areas with a good County Recorder it can have its easy days. Other times you find yourself in a six figure barrel of worms. Both encounters have value.
I learned basic Section breakdowns with my Mom while she studied real Estate and development. 40 plus years later I'm still learning the finer points of the system. If you confuse consistency and sound design with easy you will miss a lot.
Kent McMillan, post: 410922, member: 3 wrote:
It was in the form of a three-ring binder in the County Judge's office, except the judge didn't know that he had it. Evidently his predecessor in office had failed to provide any information related to various matters and the binder with the official inventory was one of them.
some of the County Surveyors in California are a bit challenged too, but Most are great. County Recorders, are better, but indexing methods are often "strange" GLO records have been great (in my limited experience)
paden cash, post: 410929, member: 20 wrote: "The Ponderosa was the fictional setting for Bonanza. According to the first episode ("Mr. Henry Comstock") filmed after the pilot, it was a thousand square mile (640,000 acre or 2,600 km2) ranch on the shores of Lake Tahoe, nestled high in the Sierra Nevada, with a large ranch house in the center of it.".
Yes, but every acre of that fictional ranch was probably rented, aside from a couple of sections where Cartwright had some sets built in case a TV production company was interested in helping him make some easy money.
In the Oklahoma Territory portion of our state, conveyances are kept by STR in chronological entries starting at patent from the US of A. Barring any erroneous entries chasing chain of ownership can be a snap.
The eastern half of the state was considered Indian Territory and things can be very different. Prior to about 1935 all allotments and trust patents were held at the various Tribal offices. After that, all the books were shipped to the County courthouses, but the conveyance may never have been transcribed to the STR volumes. The first entry might be 1922 when Smith sold to Jones. One might have to look for a while to find where Chvhakwv (Tame Goose)sold his original allotment to Smith If it's in there at all.
It may not have been transcribed to the STR books until 1950 or so. And if ownership was conveyed through a probate (and probably never sold if it stayed in the family)...you're going to be there a while.
IF the county still has the original Tribal record land volumes they may not be in English. IF you're looking for White Dog's original patent, it may be listed under Hvtke Efv.
All in all, it's still a pretty good system.
Kent McMillan, post: 410923, member: 3 wrote: The W.T. Waggoner Estate's ranch was Texas-sized.
Wow! Thanks for the link. ItÛªs hard to imagine that much land owned by an ÛÏindividualÛ.
I suppose, rather than ÛÏlandÛ it should be properly referred to as a fortune with 1100 oil wells.
No wonder all yÛªall Texans are so wealthy. 😉
BTW; The PLSS system has its problems too.
FL/GA PLS., post: 410943, member: 379 wrote: Wow! Thanks for the link. ItÛªs hard to imagine that much land owned by an ÛÏindividualÛ.
Actually, the W.T. Waggoner Estate was a sort of family corporation. Note that now the Waggoner Ranch IS owned by one person, the husband of a WalMart heiress, who laid about $725 mil down for it.
