Public Land Survey Forum :: RE: CCC Surveys

LLVanhorn — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:07:24 GMT

Author: LLVanhorn
Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 11:07 am (GMT -6)

Very Cool. Thanks for sharing!

Unfortunately many surveyors will never get the thrill of a recovery like that.

Public Land Survey Forum :: CCC Surveys

Jeff Austin — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:21:13 GMT

Author: Jeff Austin
Subject: CCC Surveys
Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 9:21 am (GMT -6)

It is to the great benefit of surveyors working in northern Wisconsin that a number of CCC camps fielded crews in the depression days whose primary task was perpetuating the PLSS.

Former Oneida Co. surveyor Harry Hall and his relatives supervised much of this work and the high number of proven original corners in the paper company lands outside of Minocqua are a direct result of their perseverance and dedication.

I was out the other day looking for a corner they recovered in the 1930's that to the best of my knowledge hasn't been visited since. They ran a fair amount of random line connecting known corners and as a result, recovered the scribed remains of one of the two GLO trees. They made two new 4" tamarack BTs and set an "IP" at the corner point.

After an hour stumbling through the bog with handheld GPS, I came upon a 8" tamarack with a distinct seam...

Hoping this was Hall's SE tree, I pulled his tie and with the aid of my compass, detected something magnetic in the still frozen sphagnum moss...

After more cutting with the machete, the CCC pipe is recovered...

Checking for their other tree, I found another tamarack with a less apparent seam...

Two new bearing trees, static GPS and the corner should be preserved indefinitely...

A 6" tamarack sacrificed for GPS. I stopped counting at 75 rings...

I have no doubt that without Hall's work 75 years ago, this would have been a lost corner today.