What is a "Dugout" (from old fieldnotes)

are you on a baseball field???;-)

My instinct is that it is an area where the creek has eroded outside it's apparent natural course, leaving a vertical bank, which they followed?

Have you been on the ground in this location? Let us know what you figure out.

How far did they follow the meander of the dugout?

Implication is that it's a ditch. Just a WAG.

I think the key word is "meanders". I can think of several definitions of dugout, but only some form of ditch would have meanders.

I don't work in PLSSia, but I seem to remember that small ditches/trenches would be dug in sort of a square around a mound (where the mound would come from I guess). I would think a dugout was literally that, something someone dug-out...

I've never heard it applied to meanders.

> I have two sets of fieldnotes in the same area that reference a "dugout". From the wording it appears to be a gully, creek, or stream.
>
> >Thence North 60 East with the Vest North line 1130 Varas to the corner in a dugout;
> >Thence with the meanders of said dugout in a Northerly direction to the xxxx North line.
>
> Just wondering if its simply a creek or gully, or maybe a man made ditch or other feature. Never run across it before.
>
> James

Well this intrigued me so I went to google and search dugout & survey. This lead me down a worm hole until I found this bit of information. Google Search

I think it was a home/shelter built into the banks of a stream/creek and the second course follows the face of the dugout, since it was in the bank.

My 0.02

I thought you meant this:

Field crew dugout

I'm with the crowd that it would imply something man made, as in dug out. Somebody had to dig it out. There are lots of other terms that apply to natural erosion and creek movements.

Maybe there is a treasure chest buried in there too and the monument was a distraction...Sneaky little pirates... 😉

I will be out there this afternoon. Looking on Google Earth, it looks to be about 1500 lf of creek. Just can't figure out why they would call it a dugout.

James

A shelter the pioneers constructed sorta like a cellar. Usually in an prairie area without very many trees for a log cabin. I have heard old timers talk about them.

I remember seeing dugout houses in West Texas when I was a kid. They were usually stucco. I just don't see any way that it would relate to a 1500 foot boundary meander in East Texas.

I was hoping it was a term commonly used back east. It may have been a surveyor that came to Texas from an area that used this term for a gully. It may have been a surveyor from Mexico and something was lost in the translation.

The two fieldnotes I have referring to a dugout are about a mile apart and join the tract I am working on from different sides. Neither of the adjoining sides is the one being called a dugout so it is really irrelevant other than curiosity. I'm assuming they were both by the same surveyor.

James

Maybe they dug it out of the creek bank (to make the shelter) and with the passage of time is just now in the creek...

A Farm Water Dugout?

:beer:
DDSM

> I will be out there this afternoon. Looking on Google Earth, it looks to be about 1500 lf of creek. Just can't figure out why they would call it a dugout.
>
> James

In my county, I can think of three instances where a creek was changed by man (or slave labor) in and around 1860 to 1870. They too called them either the new channel or the dugout.

My bet is that many a slip and mule worked an existing ditch for running water near a home or grist mill in the 19th century.

> I have two sets of fieldnotes in the same area that reference a "dugout". From the wording it appears to be a gully, creek, or stream.
>
> >Thence North 60 East with the Vest North line 1130 Varas to the corner in a dugout;
> >Thence with the meanders of said dugout in a Northerly direction to the xxxx North line.

Just out of curiosity, is that a transcription from the original conveyance to call for the meanders of a "dugout" or from some later instrument? I assume you've checked the earlier conveyances in the chain of title to verify that the word is also written the same in them?

My grandfather lived in a dugout while homesteading a quarter section from 1907 to 1912 in what is now Cimarron County, Oklahoma. But, based on what you are telling us, your dugout is something radically different.

Is there any chance that it is a word similar to dugout in appearance or is it exceptionally clear.

Sidenote: Was researching some history of a local family who had a son named Lex. In the census notes for 1920 his name has been transcribed as being Sex.

Well it ain't nuthin but a creek. It's not a hand dug reroute of a creek. It's always been a creek. 15 foot high bank, holes of still water 2-3 feet deep with a flowing stream about 2 foot wide and an inch deep connecting the holes. Big trees on the lower banks. Hills on both sides. Farther downstream it opens up to a wide creek bottom that could have been relocated at some point but it doesn't look like it. It just doesn't make sense why they would call it a dugout. I guess there are some things I will never know.

James

Maybe they were referring to the deep pools as dugouts.

Bill...

"I don't work in PLSSia, but I seem to remember that small ditches/trenches would be dug in sort of a square around a mound (where the mound would come from I guess). I would think a dugout was literally that, something someone dug-out...

I've never heard it applied to meanders."

What you are referring to are called "pits". Never heard them called "dugouts".