In southeast Nebraska there were two primary traverses run by USGS in 1913 and 1915 for quad sheet mapping control. During two different trips, we were able to go to each of the 40 traverse point locations to ascertain which ones still existed. Here are the results of which monuments remain today for the primary traverse station monuments a century later. Those not listed are presumed to have been removed. A thorough search was made at each location with a handheld GPS receiver by using a conversion process of the historical latitude/longitude positions and converting them to modern positions.
Thanks for putting that together J. I imagine the topography has changed considerably since those traverse were run. Looking at the 1913 traverse stations it doesn't look like they had much line of sight to the next station, if I am reading this right.
Oh, I just can't resist ...
I shouldn't say it, but I'm going to.
The way most of them were sticking up in the air in plain sight I think even the Power Squadron could have tripped over them!
🙂 😉 😀
I don't believe the traverse points were point to point. There must have been several intermediate points (wood hubs?) in between since you cannot see between any two traverse points and most permanent points are spaced about three miles apart.
There is also a 1905 traverse a little north of that area, but no luck finding any of those yet. Another 1917 traverse that had about 40 points was in the Omaha area and north from there, but the urban sprawl of the city has most likely gotten all of them.
Remember back in 1913 most rural people were still traveling by horse and wagon so just setting the monument a short ways from the road probably seemed sufficient back then.
USGS is certainly an interesting agency when you research the early stuff. In two places in Nebraska they did triangulation in the late 1890's, four places they did traverse in the 1910's, and the rest left no record. In the 1930's they started doing the Transit Traverse (TT) stuff and left disks in concrete. By the 1960's they were doing Electronic Traverse (ET) and had disks on long rods.
Maybe they used Bilby Towers.
Also, is there any way to relocate these things with a Survey Grade GPS and see how good the locations are? At least the distances between them?
I really enjoy pics like this. Thanks.
Here are the notes from 1913 showing the positions to a tenth of a second in latitude and longitude. Also photos of each monument with a handheld GPS receiver to a tenth of a second.
Man! I didn't even stop to think that they might have used Bilby towers. Every time I think of those old surveys from Nebraska J.Penry posts about I keep getting those pictures in my head of the depression era drought and dust bowl creating huge drifts and dunes J.Penry posted about.
