Oklahoma specific question

For ordinary township lines the last mile north is run random and true. The quarter corner goes in at 40 chains. When that last mile ends on a correction line (typically every 4th township) a closing corner is established, and the true corner is the intersection of the line thus monumented and the township line as established. 

In practice, you will always get the original GLO field notes in such cases and follow what they did.     

For a typical township the N1/4 of Section 1 is also the S1/4 of Section 36, however, as Norman states above when closing on a standard line there will be a shift, that creates a closing corner and the N1/4 will not fall on a line between the NE monument and NW monument of Section 1. It will fall on the south line of Section 36 a mean distance between the NE and NW corners of Section 1 (pay close attention to cardinal equivalents), then there will be two 1/4 corners one for Section 36 and another for Section 1. 

There are many variations, consult the controlling manual for each case. 

That's just for proration, hopefully, anywhere you are there will be field evidence of original monuments or perpetuation of that evidence and the proration can be avoided, but for these tests they often want the math solution. 

Different states were handled differently on so many things.  NormanOklahoma mentioned the standard parallels in Oklahoma being every four townships (24 miles).  Meanwhile, Kansas has five townships (30 miles) between standard parallels.  Straight south of my house the jog on the standard parallel is very close to one-quarter mile.  Straight north of my house at the next standard parallel is close to one-half mile.  Another surveyor told me he had almost made a big mistake on that line where the half mile line north of the line and the normal section line south of the line were about 10 feet apart.  He had found the wrong one first.

Oklahoma has three different initial points.  Two for the eastern part and the western part of the main part of the State and a third for surveying in the panhandle.  Meanwhile, Kansas has only one.

Oklahoma has a boatload of Indian boundary lines to take into consideration, while Kansas has one-third as many.

Oklahoma borders six States surveyed at vastly different times.  Last I heard, Texas and Oklahoma are still unsettled on part of their shared boundary.

Posted by: @holy-cow

↑

Different states were handled differently on so many things.  NormanOklahoma mentioned the standard parallels in Oklahoma being every four townships (24 miles).  Meanwhile, Kansas has five townships (30 miles) between standard parallels. 

Much of Oklahoma was surveyed under the 1855 manual - same as Kansas, I believe.

Starting in 1881, when plenty of Oklahoma remained to be surveyed, the instructions read:

You are right that there are lots of variations between states, OK had many areas under of special instructions for Indian Allotments, for example. But there are also variations depending on which manual was in force at the time of survey.  

For the record, I believe that the 4 townships north, 5 south thing was a creation of the special needs of the Oregon survey, where there was a lot more pre-survey settlement south of the baseline (the Willamette Valley) than north of the Columbia River.

Posted by: @holy-cow

↑

Oklahoma has three different initial points. 

Lets not get the OP in a stir a week before his test. Oklahoma has only two meridians, the Indian and the Cimarron.

@norman-oklahoma 

Thanks for correcting me.  I just typed a new post and when I went to Add Reply, I lost it completely.

Here goes on why I confused myself.  The main part of Oklahoma had two names.  The large area that had been divided into numerous Indian Tribal designated lands was collectively identified as Indian Territory.  The remaining area to the west, excluding the panhandle, was Oklahoma Territory.  Then the panhandle was known as No Man's Land as it had not formally been attached to any State or Territory until 1907 when it joined the other two parts and became The State of Oklahoma.  Legal settlement of No Man's Land began with Statehood.

Living close to what was Indian Territory, I have seen many local obituaries over the decades that would note the deceased was born in I.T. for Indian Territory.

The Indian Meridian was adopted in 1870.  The Cimarron Meridian was adopted in 1881 but not used until 1907 on the first Government -issued land patents.

Posted by: @norman-oklahoma

↑

Starting in 1881, when plenty of Oklahoma remained to be surveyed, the instructions read:

That should have read "Starting in 1871 ........"

Don't forget to put it on the curve. 

Curve?  What curve?  We don't need no stinkin' curves around here.  Keith and I fought about that a few iterations back when I'm not sure what the name was for this great site.

Depending on what year a line was laid out and what year the solar compass was available west of the Mississippi River, and only on standard parallels, might that goal have been attempted in the field.  My home area had liars writing the field notes.  I think our standard parallels were surveyed in the 1830's.  About the same time as most of the Indian Boundaries.

Have a look at how many sections had been completed in eastern Kansas by 1857.

https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/sectional-map-territory-kansas

The last seminar I went to, the presenter said curved lines on the north and south township lines, then straight lines everywhere else. Not exactly "by the book". 

The reason for the Oklahoma Panhandle goes back to the 1820 Missouri Compromise.

Today fewer than 1% of Oklahomans live in the 168 x 34 mile-wide strip. It was Spanish territory until 1821, when it became part of independent Mexico. The Republic of Texas claimed it when declaring independence. But then, upon entering the Union as a slave state in 1845, Texas surrendered its claim to the region because slavery was prohibited north of 36°30′ latitude by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. 36°30′ became the Panhandle’s southern boundary. Its northern border at 37° was set in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and allowed Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves if they would be slave or free.

The northwest corner of Oklahoma is a pincushion as described here      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimarron_meridian

The southwest corner of the Oklahoma Panhandle is a special case for a pincushion..  The northwest corner of the Texas Panhandle is two miles west of the Oklahoma corner.

All caused by surveyors.

Anyone interested in the Kansas/Oklahoma border or simply interested in how surveying was conducted in 1857 should enjoy this account.  Note the comments about how crude the western boundary of Missouri appeared to them.

https://kancoll.org/khq/1937/37_4_caldwell.htm

Posted by: @holy-cow

↑

The northwest corner of Oklahoma is a pincushion

The northeast corner (being also the SE corner of Kansas) is a pincushion of a different sort.

A marker built from native stone was erected in 1938 by the WPA, but it is located 50 feet to the west of the actual tri-point. A stand-on plaque was added in October 2004 at the actual site of the tripoint

Plug in "Downstream Casino" on your car's guidance system to get there.  As you turn west off the highway to enter the huge parking lot, go a couple hundred feet, then turn south (left) on a lane that dead ends at the marker and the rock tower.  The Quapaws operate the casino and hotel.  The casino is in Oklahoma and the parking lot is in Kansas.

The link provided on surveying the south line of Kansas explains that this tri-point was on Quapaw land.  A short distance to the north was the boundary between the Quapaws and the Osage.  A few miles to the south was Cherokee land

I am late to this party, so I apologize. Seems your question has been answered, but tip of advice on the OLS exam. Oklahoma LOVES their proportioning questions. You will be given a plat and a working sketch. They will ask you to calculate the location of at least one corner then a bunch of other questions will be based off that math. They used to even ask stuff like do you need to file a CCR for it and so on. 

So just ensure you are solid on the math part. They may give you all coordinates or a starting coordinate with some bearings and distances and you will have to traverse over to your point. 

But that problem will most likely be almost half your exam. So brush up on that, remember 75% of that exam is BLM materials and only 25% is actual "Oklahoma Specific" items. I was to slow on writing my questions, but will be releasing my Oklahoma study materials this week. I know that doesn't help with this exam. 

Wish you luck, eat a good dinner tonight and get a good sleep. No need to cram last minute. If you don't know it already then you most likely wont know it by the morning.