Last weekend the local Oklahoma Society of Land Surveyors had their meeting at Randy Pollard's place in Haworth. 'mongst the attendees were Richard Widmar of the BLM and Bruce Pitts (aka da hammer) of the Enforcement Division of the State Board.
Besides all the good 'cue and the ongoing discussions of how-in-the-hell-to-survey-on-the-Red River, there was one order of business that was rather surprising.
An older fella, whose father was reported to have been among the GLO surveyors that performed the original surveys, donated his father's Gurley Plain Compass, with tripod, to the Society.
The compass and tripod are apparently in very good condition. Mr. Pitts was placed in charge of transporting the goodies back to the State Board's infamous "Glass Case" out in their atrium.
I can't wait to hear the story and details.
The open-site Gurley is similar to this model:
OMG! What a treasure of a gift. I see surveyors and surveyors organizations all over the U.S. making donations to state and local museums. Hope you'all make a good decision of this item to both educate the public and preserve our heritage.
Pablo B-)