Merry Christmas to all from 8742.27 feet!
While I don't make a habit of working on holidays, this Christmas Eve was just too nice a day (56F with no wind and occasional patches of snow) to not look for an old control station. I have been retracing a triangulation survey conducted a little over 145 years ago in the old mining town of Central City. The City's historic claim is to be the "Richest Square Mile on Earth," which made the triangulation control survey a necessity.
To preserve the locations of the mineral surveys in the area, a triangulation survey was conducted during the summer and fall of 1880. The survey includes 80 triangulation stations. I've posted about this before.
Anyway, I found myself on top of Bobtail Hill looking for the Central City Triangulation Survey Station No. 35. The station is monumented by a solid copper bolt let into a drill steel hole in granitic bedrock. The Map of Central City describes the station as, "On Summit of Bobtail Hill."
First photo is my Leica gear on the station looking to the east-southeast. Second photo is a closeup of the solid copper bolt let into the bedrock looking to the south. Please note that the center of the bolt is dimpled!! My search coordinates were only 0.42 feet from the bolt.
Great work!
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Central City, Colorado
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| City of Central | |
The Teller House in Central City
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| Nickname:
The Richest Square Mile on Earth
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 Central City
Location of the City of Central, Colorado.
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| Coordinates: 39.8019322°N 105.5141639°W[3] | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Colorado |
| Counties[2] | Gilpin Clear Creek |
| Settled | 1859 |
| Incorporated | June 12, 1886[4] |
| Government
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| • Type | home rule city[1] |
| Area | |
| 2.1599 sq mi (5.5940 km2) | |
| • Land | 2.1597 sq mi (5.5937 km2) |
| • Water | 0.00012 sq mi (0.0003 km2) |
| Elevation | 8,498 ft (2,590 m) |
| Population | |
| 779 | |
| • Density | 361/sq mi (139/km2) |
| • Metro
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2,963,821 (19th) |
| • CSA
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3,623,560 (17th) |
| Time zone | UTC−07:00 (MST) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC−06:00 (MDT) |
| ZIP code[6] |
80427
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| Area codes | 303/720/983 |
| GNIS pop ID | 181484 |
| GNIS city ID | 2409427 |
| FIPS code | 08-12900 |
| Website | centralcity |
Central City is a home rule municipality located in Gilpin and Clear Creek counties, Colorado, United States.[1] Central City is the county seat of and the most populous municipality in Gilpin County.[7] The city population was 779, all in Gilpin County, at the 2020 United States census.[5] The city is a historic mining settlement founded in 1859 during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush and came to be known as the "Richest Square Mile on Earth". Central City and the adjacent city of Black Hawk form the federally designated Central City/Black Hawk Historic District. The city is now a part of the Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Front Range Urban Corridor.
What a fun treasure hunt. Are all of the triangulation points permanent metal and/or concrete monuments?
This story improves if you understand the surveyor in question is seeking for a monument only twice his own age, give or take a little.
Growing up in the sandhills of Nebraska on a cattle ranch prepared him for getting out of his rocking chair on a beautiful day, even if it is Christmas.
Nice one Gene, nothing like a solid monument, and now a solid coordinare to boot.
Loyal