Surveying in non-existent towns

Done it a few times. Virginia city, mt - street signs on rusty pipe post sticking up out of the middle of dense sage brush, no signs of the road. Someone was buying a couple of city blocks that we were laying out. Walking ahead on line to the block corner, I found a chaining pin. Ahles, Mt, platted in 1925 - never found any deeds. Appeared to have failed in about 1933. I did use the plat to find the broken fragments of a section corner stone. The townsite plat also had ties to a railroad. I searched for the C1/4 which was supposed to be the north east corner of the townsite. No luck. 

Either one of those projects would be a lot of fun to solve but it would definitely not be a money maker. I can see myself up late most nights trying to make sense out of old documents and then wandering around during the day just looking for whatever else might give me a clue. Basically a treasure hunt with no real treasure.

The VC job was back in about 1985- Zeiss TH2 theodolite with top-mount auto-Ranger days. No data collector- notes in a field book- all hand comps. It would be interesting to revisit this now with RTK. 

The latest one we did was for a vacated town. It was interesting, the evidence of a town that was never built out, then vacated, then pastured made it more of an investigation of old occupation.

I've not encountered anything like that in Colonial states. Towns expand and occasionally contract, generally along irregular boundaries along the periphery of existing tracts of land. Messy surveys will let you know if you're a man of action or a man of words, if you're honest with yourself.

In surveying, the divide between the man of action and the man of words appears when a boundary is too flawed for a textbook solution. When a proper survey costs more than the land, the principled surveyor often refuses the work, leaving a vacuum the low-baller (pragmatist?) fills.
I saw this in New Hampshire, where the reputable PLSs avoided a chaotic subdivision until a low‑baller set corners based on practical fit with homes and roads. Only then did others engage. To the landowners, the one who acted, albeit imperfectly, was the one who delivered.

Posted by: @murphy

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To the landowners, the one who acted, albeit imperfectly, was the one who delivered.

I got a call yesterday for a survey in a subdivision well known as a surveying disaster.  I can often provide a quote without a site visit but thought I should look at this one before saying no altogether.  The lots all around the ones I was asked to survey were done by a good friend of mine so recently that the flagging hadn't begun to fade yet.  My work is mostly done.  I got the job, shot his stuff and will have 3-4 hours all total in the survey that could have been an 80 hour nightmare.  it is near what was once a bustling place for 10,000 years but with modern transportation corridors bypassing it, things are mighty quiet nowadays.

Reviewed a survey recently that reminded me of the town that was once there but on an adjoining tract.  So, he didn't need to address any questions that could have arisen if he had been surveying that adjoiner.  Jacksonville, KS was on the east edge of Dorn County.  Dorn County was later split into two counties, so that name is unknown by almost everyone living in those living in those counties.  Jacksonville had a newspaper during its existence that can be accessed through the State Historical Society and at least one library.  There was a hotel, two barbershops a livery stable, feed store, several drinking establishments, a diner or two and several fraternal organizations.  Today, there is absolutely nothing left to suggest it existed.

Jacksonville adjoined what was then known as the Cherokee Neutral Lands, a strip of land running precisely 25 miles east and west by 50 miles north and south with its eastern boundary being the western boundary of the State of Missouri and the southern boundary being the southern boundary of Kansas Territory.  Land to the west of the Cherokee Neutral Lands had been opened for settlement following the Canville Treaty with the Osage Tribe in late 1965.  Settlement of the Cherokee Neutral Lands came several years later.  Thus, Jacksonville was the gateway to Dorn County.  It ceased to exist after being missed by three miles by the first railroad in the area.  All of the big city eventually fell to the ownership of the adjoining aliquot part of the section.

I passed on surveying in a town that barely exists yet today.  The potential client had told me that he had purchased a lot or two or three that were vacant.  He asked what the survey bill would be.  I said, "Much more than what you probably paid for the lots."  We both had a good laugh at that.  Then he admitted he had paid the seller $5.00 total.  I had researched that little town for record surveys going back to the 1860's when it was platted.  There were none.  I had previously surveyed a tract in the corner of an aliquot fraction of the adjoining section and had had to search for any data for the relevant section corner.  The once thriving town had been drowned in the early 1950's with over eight feet of water from the river that ran along its eastern boundary.  The school never reopened, nearly every business closed and most residents found housing elsewhere.  Thirty years ago there was the water plant I had surveyed, a post office and a very small beer joint/cafe occupying one half of a building.  The other half of the building had been removed due to the flood.  There was a mark on the southwest corner of that half-building eight feet above the sidewalk commemorating the flood level.

https://rpls.com/forums/strictly-surveying/mont-clair-the-ephemeral-town/