+Kit Fox Posted December 26, 2005 Share Posted December 26, 2005 (edited) Hello, I'm trying to locate a benchmark that is located within the jail facility in which I work. EW0557 is giving me trouble. The coords were off, so I discounted them. I know where the building in question is located, but I'm not sure where exactly I should be looking. any help you can give me is greatly appreciated. I did look at the topo map which does give me a better spot to search, but I still can't find it. Aerial View, with the listed coordinates For all of you historical buffs, here is a good link to the facility's past War Eagle Field Edited December 26, 2005 by Kit Fox Quote Link to comment
mloser Posted December 26, 2005 Share Posted December 26, 2005 (edited) The way I look at it, you have to find building 27. The mark is only a foot or so from the east corner, so it should be findable if building 27 remains. If building 27 was destroyed the mark may have been removed with it. Here is how I would approach it: Without an old map of the base I am left guessing what building number 27 was. If for some reason there is still a building 27 I would start there, but I would neither count on there being a building 27, nor if there was, that it was still the building 27 that existed in 1945. That takes me to Hanger 1 and where it could be. There are two buildings on the property that were definitely hangers. Measuring 225 feet from the northwest end of the door track (if it remains!) of each of these buildings would be my first task. The description says THENCE 0.15 MILE SOUTHEAST THROUGH THE MIRA LOMA FACILITY GROUNDS. While there is some slack in the directions given in descriptions, and the distance of .15 mile is not exact, I would start with that, as it may help me determine which was Hanger 1. Quickly measuring .15 mile from the old entrance (I think it was on the corner, wasn't it?) takes me down what looks like a road that goes under the u-shaped building in the northwest corner, and into a tree-lined area. This is heartening, because there is a hanger just to the south of that spot. Measuring from the hanger, in a sort of northerly direction, about 225 feet, gives me a possible intersection and the location of the mark (?). There appears to be no building at that location but maybe there is enough evidence of one to locate the old foundation. THAT is where I would start looking. It is a typical location--along a main pathway and fairly close to a building. Building 27 in this case would most likely have been to the northeast of the drive. I have attached a Google Earth pic to the benchmark listing to illustrate the distances. If I failed there, I would transfer my search to the northeast hanger. It is less likely but still a possibility. And don't overlook your best resource! Since you work there, get hold of someone in the buildings and ground department and see if they have maps or plans of the old base. They may even have survey points listed and this mark might be among them. Edited December 26, 2005 by mloser Quote Link to comment
+Kit Fox Posted December 26, 2005 Author Share Posted December 26, 2005 And don't overlook your best resource! Since you work there, get hold of someone in the buildings and ground department and see if they have maps or plans of the old base. They may even have survey points listed and this mark might be among them. It just so happens I do work in the maintenance dept, and I will have to see what I can "dredge up." The hangar you listed as a plausible point to check is the only one that I haven't checked yet. It is outside of the "Sheriff's area" but still within county property, I shouldn't have too much trouble accessing that hangar. I have found and logged the other BM on the facilty, without a hitch EW0561 Thanks for taking the time to give me guidance, BM directions can be quite confusing to newbies. Quote Link to comment
mloser Posted December 27, 2005 Share Posted December 27, 2005 Most of us here pounce on this sort of thing, especially us northern folks who are sort of trapped indoors during the colder snowy months! Most benchmarks are set with some forethought and often follow certain patterns--on a hill, on an easily determined line, near a power or telephone pole, etc. Once you find some of each kind it will start to make some sense. I am sure it is slightly different in each area, but the main plan was to have the marks as easily located as possible. You found the one mark and it was almost on a direct line from the entrance to the old control tower. Chances are that this one was set with the same sort of thinking in mind. The mark you are searching for should be identical to the one you found--it was set the same year so I see no reason it would be a different mark or setting. Including area shots of your marks is a good idea. Those of us who browse the gallery appreciate them. And don't forget the water tank on the west edge of the facility--it is a benchmark too... what is called an "intersection station" because it was used to tie a number of marks together when making a survey. The actual benchmark will be the top of the tower--usually a ball vent or other pointy object. The coordinates should be exact. If they aren't you can suspect that another tower has replaced the one you are looking for. Quote Link to comment
+PFF Posted December 27, 2005 Share Posted December 27, 2005 (edited) This is an interesting challenge! Keep in mind that you are looking for a building which existed in 1945 and in 1971. With all the changes at the site, checking construction styles should provide some clues. I compared current photos and topo maps with older topo maps. One building, in particular, stands out as having been on the site for a long time. It could be at the correct position to be "225 feet north" of a hanger. I don't know if it is old enough to be Building 27. Try these coordinates: N34 42.126 W118 14.070 It should put you at the spot indicated in this photograph. See if this building dates from 1945. If not, look at other buildings in the vicinity. Be sure to let us know the results of your next search! -Paul- Edited December 27, 2005 by PFF Quote Link to comment
+PFF Posted December 27, 2005 Share Posted December 27, 2005 mloser wrote: That takes me to Hanger 1 and where it could be. There are two buildings on the property that were definitely hangers. Measuring 225 feet from the northwest end of the door track (if it remains!) of each of these buildings would be my first task. I agree, especially if the eastern "hanger" still exists. Using the NGS FORWARD program, I plotted 225 feet from the northwestern edge of the eastern hanger. The program returned these coordinates: N34 42.181 W118 14.052 Once at these coordinates (which are APPROXIMATE!), it will be interesting to observe whether any buildings seem to date from 1941. Your suggestion gives Kit Fox several possibilities. Of course, it might help if our "man on the scene" wasn't doing his searching after a 16-hour work shift! -Paul- Quote Link to comment
mloser Posted December 27, 2005 Share Posted December 27, 2005 PFF, The dot on your photograph is just NW of the old control tower and is about where the benchmark Kit Fox already located is. Also note that the measurement is from teh northwest end of the door track of the southwest door. I had trouble figuring out where the southwest door would be--I wanted to put a "southwest" door on the southwest side of the hanger (i.e. lower left of the hanger), but that makes no sense since you couldn't measure north (up) from there since it would be through the hanger. So I simply made the assumption that the door was on the northeast face of the hanger. I failed to read Kit Fox's entire post and missed the last line with the history of the field. It included some good aerial photos. I have marked on up and put it in my note on the benchmark page showing my building 27 candidates. Of course, all this armchair benchmarking can't beat being there. As Kit said in his email, he plans on trying to find some historic plans. If he can locate building 27 on them all this conjecture is unnecessary! Matt Quote Link to comment
+Kit Fox Posted December 27, 2005 Author Share Posted December 27, 2005 PFF, The location you posted puts me behind the tower where the BM I found is located. We have to replace the American Flag, on top of the Water Tower, and when we go up there, I plan on bringing my camera and GPS. I have been up the tower 4 time already, and noticed the mark, but wasn't sure what it was, until I got interested in benchmarking. Here is a previous shot of me on top of the Tower, with a Travel Bug Thanks for all the advice. I'm going to stick to BMs on top of mountains for awhile, and skip the complicated BMs located in town. Bill, Quote Link to comment
holograph Posted December 27, 2005 Share Posted December 27, 2005 Here's a different link to a clearly marked hanger 1. It's hard to tell its relation to the former runway, but I'd guess the runway was at the right edge of the photo, making hanger 1 the northermost of the two hangers. From all the other aerial photos, it looks like the hangers are still there, but who knows about the other buildings. Quote Link to comment
+Kit Fox Posted December 27, 2005 Author Share Posted December 27, 2005 I did some hunting around today, and made out the faint, hangar numbers. The hanger with the red dot, in my original picture is in fact Hangar 1 which leads me to believe the BM should be located near the quonsett hut due north of the Southwest door of hangar 1. I'll report back with what I find. Bill, Quote Link to comment
+Black Dog Trackers Posted December 27, 2005 Share Posted December 27, 2005 This is the very essence of industrial archaeology work to get the prize benchmark find! Quote Link to comment
+Kit Fox Posted December 27, 2005 Author Share Posted December 27, 2005 This is the very essence of industrial archaeology work to get the prize benchmark find! I found this elusive beast, after enlisting the help of two bonifide Maintenance guys, who happens to be good friends. My big mistake was not using a compass. I kept following Hangar 1 "North", but forgot that the hangar is oriented in a NorthEast/Southwest direction. I realized my mistake, while reviewing an old paper map, of the facility. I'll post pictures of the actual find when I get home. The blue circle is the location of the BM. Quote Link to comment
+Klemmer Posted December 27, 2005 Share Posted December 27, 2005 Great job! Feels good, huh? "Industrial Archeology" indeed! Quote Link to comment
mloser Posted December 27, 2005 Share Posted December 27, 2005 Congratulations! This is the sort of thing that keeps me hunting--the ones that aren't obvious and take some thought or research. I guess I was totally wrong about which hanger it was though! As for the water tower, the top IS the mark. STATION IS THE CENTER OF THE TANK. Usually this is any pointy or round thing on the top. You will often see descriptions that say it is the ball vent, etc, on top of the tank. A picture of you on the top of the tank is more than enough to convince ME that you found it, since it is a place I would never go! The sneaky thing about water tanks is that they are sometimes replaced, so compare the tank to the description carefully.. THE TANK IS ELEVATED, ROUND, 15 FEET IN DIAMETER, PAINTED SILVER AND ABOUT 65 FEET IN HEIGHT. IT IS ELEVATED ON FOUR STRUCTURAL STEEL LEGS.. Also, for those of us who like to remain grounded, we will approach the tank with our GPSr and see if it points to the center of the tank. If it doesn't we get suspicious that the tank was replaced. If you want to get on top and see if the elevation matches go for it! Here is an example of a Replaced tank that has fooled a number of people. It is described as a 60 foot standpipe, but what is there is a much taller standard tank. Keep hunting the marks in town! You are doing a great job. The more you do, the more you learn, and the easier they become. Then the challenging ones become fun and not stressful. Quote Link to comment
+PFF Posted December 27, 2005 Share Posted December 27, 2005 In the NGS forum, someone asked if the FORWARD program could have value in our hobby. This experiment clearly shows that it would. 34 42.181 PREDICTED LATITUDE 34 42.177 HANDHELD GPS INDICATION 118 14.052 PREDICTED LONGITUDE 118 14.049 HANDHELD GPS INDICATION The FORWARD program can be found in the NGS Toolbox on the NGS web site. It will predict a set of cordinates, based upon a starting position, plus the distance and bearing to the target. In this case, the starting point was approximate, being based upon an aerial photograph with a resolution of 1:10,000. Plus, it was not known exactly where on the building the southwest door was located. Still, the results proved to be acceptable. Had the western hanger been #1, mlosers position would have been equally close. Meanwhile, holograph pulled a "rabbit out of the hat" by producing an actual photo of Hanger #1. These group projects generate awesome results! But in the end, the gold star goes to Kit Fox for his "never say die" attitude. Great job on the scene, Bill. Thanks for giving Forum members the chance to participate--even from 2500+ miles away! -Paul- Quote Link to comment
+Kit Fox Posted December 28, 2005 Author Share Posted December 28, 2005 (edited) Congratulations! This is the sort of thing that keeps me hunting--the ones that aren't obvious and take some thought or research.I guess I was totally wrong about which hanger it was though! As for the water tower, the top IS the mark. STATION IS THE CENTER OF THE TANK. Usually this is any pointy or round thing on the top. You will often see descriptions that say it is the ball vent, etc, on top of the tank. A picture of you on the top of the tank is more than enough to convince ME that you found it, since it is a place I would never go! The sneaky thing about water tanks is that they are sometimes replaced, so compare the tank to the description carefully.. THE TANK IS ELEVATED, ROUND, 15 FEET IN DIAMETER, PAINTED SILVER AND ABOUT 65 FEET IN HEIGHT. IT IS ELEVATED ON FOUR STRUCTURAL STEEL LEGS.. Also, for those of us who like to remain grounded, we will approach the tank with our GPSr and see if it points to the center of the tank. If it doesn't we get suspicious that the tank was replaced. If you want to get on top and see if the elevation matches go for it! Here is an example of a Replaced tank that has fooled a number of people. It is described as a 60 foot standpipe, but what is there is a much taller standard tank. Keep hunting the marks in town! You are doing a great job. The more you do, the more you learn, and the easier they become. Then the challenging ones become fun and not stressful. Here is the elusive benchmark. They may have replaced the water tank, because I know for fact the tank is over 100 feet tall. Here is the after shot of the tank, after I helped replace the American Flag I did see another recovery date with this remark" 1/1/1963 by CGS (MONUMENTED) RECOVERY NOTE BY COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY 1963 (WRH) THE STATION IS LOCATED AIRLINE, ABOUT 6 MILES WEST OF LANCASTER, 0.2 MILE SOUTH OF THE INTERSECTION OF AVENUE I AND 60 TH STREET WEST AND 100 FEET EAST OF THE CENTERLINE OF 60 TH STREET WEST. THE POINT INTERSECTED WAS THE TOP CENTER OF A 125 FOOT HIGH, ELEVATED STEEL TANK WHICH IS PAINTED SILVER IN COLOR. Thanks for all the help, you guys really cemented my passion to hunt benchmarks. Edited December 28, 2005 by Kit Fox Quote Link to comment
mloser Posted December 28, 2005 Share Posted December 28, 2005 Kit, Good catch on the water tower! I just glanced at the datasheet and didn't notice the different recoveries. There are a few odd things about that datasheet. First is the change you noticed, which is pretty rare without any other mention of the tower being different. The second is that every recovery on that tower has a status of "MONUMENTED". Usually an intersection station like a tower is "FIRST OBSERVED", then recovered after that (unless the CGS built it just to be a benchmark, I doubt they monumented it!). This may imply that its location was reestablished each time it was recovered, or that someone did some poor data entry. Adding confusion is the 1968 recovery (monumenting!) which states that the tank was recovered as in the 1958 recovery. But in between, in 1963, the description was changed significantly to describe a taller tower. If you can get under the tower with your GPSr you can pretty closely confirm if the center of the tower is at the specified location. Height of an intersection station is not important. It is the horizontal location of the center of the top, which would be used as an intermediate point between stations on a survey. If you choose to recover it to the NGS, some sort of note would be in order saying that the tower confirms to the 1963 description and not to the 1958 one. Paul, instead of FORWARD, I simply use the Route function of USAPhotomaps and drag a line in the direction I think I should. Given the innacuracies of the original directions by cardinal points, and the scale of the map, my goal is usually just to test out some theories, not to establish a specific "goto" point. That is simply my choice, not a condemnation of FORWARD at all.` Quote Link to comment
evenfall Posted December 28, 2005 Share Posted December 28, 2005 "1.5 FEET SOUTHEAST OF THE EAST CORNER OF BUILDING 27, AND SET IN THE TOP OF A CONCRETE POST PROJECTING 0.4 FOOT ABOVE THE GROUND." Your Photo Confirms this. But in 1945 this was a USAAF Air Field, and now it is a County Prison Facility... What I would like to know is if the building is still referred to as Building 27, and if current maps of the facility could have driven you straight to it. If not, are historical maps of the facility available which could have helped... he Facilities people knew where building 27 was... How were they able to know? Read some of the history about this... Googled more. Fun read, Thanks. Rob Quote Link to comment
+PFF Posted December 29, 2005 Share Posted December 29, 2005 Paul, instead of FORWARD, I simply use the Route function of USAPhotomaps and drag a line in the direction I think I should. Given the innacuracies of the original directions by cardinal points, and the scale of the map, my goal is usually just to test out some theories, not to establish a specific "goto" point. That is simply my choice, not a condemnation of FORWARD at all.` Glad you brought this up. I have access to a "measuring" function in numerous programs, as well as on the GPS unit. I have yet to find one to be accurate over short distances--even the ones on GIS sites for various North Carolina counties. I rate them as okay to the nearest half-mile. Has anyone else used these, and how was the accuracy? -Paul- Quote Link to comment
+Kit Fox Posted December 29, 2005 Author Share Posted December 29, 2005 "1.5 FEET SOUTHEAST OF THE EAST CORNER OF BUILDING 27, AND SET IN THE TOP OF A CONCRETE POST PROJECTING 0.4 FOOT ABOVE THE GROUND." Your Photo Confirms this. But in 1945 this was a USAAF Air Field, and now it is a County Prison Facility... What I would like to know is if the building is still referred to as Building 27, and if current maps of the facility could have driven you straight to it. If not, are historical maps of the facility available which could have helped... he Facilities people knew where building 27 was... How were they able to know? Read some of the history about this... Googled more. Fun read, Thanks. Rob I looked through every blueprint for the facility, that I could find, and none of them referred to the building as #27. The maintenance guys helped me look for the area, after I showed them the aerial photo of the most likely spot (which was the small silver hangar next to their shop. It wasn't until we compared notes from the BM sheet, and then looked at a blueprint showing all the buildings north of the hangar door, did we decide that we should focus our search in the area where we found the Bm. Quote Link to comment
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