I'm dealing with an easement near the North Canadian River and trying to read up on Oklahoma riparian rights. I note that the rivers in Oklahoma have been determined to be non-navigable in nature except that portion of the Arkansas between its junction with the Grand (Neosho) River to the Arkansas State line. This thready portion of the North Canadian I am working near definitely lacks any semblance of a navigable river, but the original surveyors meandered and lotted the sections through which it passes. Most if the modern legal descriptions I am looking at fail to even reference the Lots and just stick with the aliquot descriptions. I'm not sure why the original surveyors went to the effort to meander and lot the non-navigable river if the present day owners don't acknowledge the lines.
I'm not sure why the original surveyors went to the effort to meander and lot the non-navigable river...
They were paid extra, by the mile, for meander lines.
What do the ORIGINAL Patents say?
How about the Master Title Plat and Historical Index?
Loyal
?ÿI'm not sure why the original surveyors went to the effort to meander and lot the non-navigable river if the present day owners don't acknowledge the lines.
For a few days a year those rivers will flow very full. Perhaps those surveyors just happened along on one of those days. The Canadian River at Norman was meandered (as I recall) but I think that was just because the GLO contract terminated at the river?ÿ
I wasn't aware that even the Arkansas was considered navigable, within OK, in it's natural state. There is a dam in it at Sallisaw?ÿ just 20 miles from the AR border.?ÿ
More specifically, I am looking at Sec. 5 in T13N, R9W, IM in Canadian County OK.?ÿ
I did look at the patents and they call for a mix of aliquot and lots. The river in my area of interest (lot 10) has moved about 356 feet east from its meandered position. The patent for Lot 6 on the north side of the river was made out to Walking Woman, a member of the Cheyenne or Arapahoe Tribe. I'm reading my little head off about Oklahoma riparian boundary law but now here is something I haven't considered or researched yet, but if these are federally protected Indian lands, how are the boundaries controlled. Up to now, I assumed it was middle of the stream.
In many areas, when some feature of the property boundaries are of record, there is nothing shown on the new survey as it may indicate some change to the record.
I have always found that to be quite odd myself.
The original GLO surveyors meandered these rivers because the policy of the GLO dictating which rivers were meandered had nothing to do with navigability.?ÿ The local land owners tend to "ignore" the lots and riparian boundaries, because their surveyors and attorneys couldn't be bothered with wrapping their heads around anything that wasn't a a perfect PLSS rectangle, this doesn't usually mean that their boundaries changed from what the their patents gave them.?ÿ
It's curious to me how local land owners and surveyors seem to ignore the fractional lots. In one particular section, the fractional lot that would be the NW4 of the NW4 is 19.3 chains but the surveyor put the sixteenth corner in by single proportion so the Ne4 of the NW4 donated some land to the former. The fences and occupation match the monument so I suppose everyone is happy, but it doesn't reflect how the section was originally laid out.
Project is coming to a close and I am preparing my CCRs. I'm wondering if there is any rule to filling out the form with regard to the corner name? I prepared one for the N/4 of Sec. 4 and now I am preparing one for the S/4 of Sec 9 - which is also the N/4 of Sec. 4. I suppose for simplicity I should use the same designation as the superseded CCR.
I'm a bit confused as to how Section 4 ended up south of 9, but...
The patent to an indivdual indian should not effect the way you treat the lines. Trust land is another matter but that doesnt seem to apply.
An important thing to remember on the patents is what they include. The plat, notes and monuments are part of the patent. You cannot ignore them because the language in the patent doesn't match. The actions of owners over time will layer over the top of the record as well, as long as the feds are out of the picture.
As for what to call the corners, current policy is to call the lot corners 1/16ths. That doesn't mean every BLM office is doing it that way.
I believe I failed to answer any of your questions but I sure hope I helped, Tom
I'm a bit confused as to how Section 4 ended up south of 9, but...
Well, there's a reason for that. As you can see by the edit history, I called for the wrong quarter corner in my original?ÿ post. In my haste, I went back and changed the wrong one.?ÿ
Too funny. I thought maybe some GLO guy got creative...
