USBM Chiseled Square

[+t8r]

Found my first stone benchmark yesterday. NV0739

Just want to get some discussion going as to how old this type of mark might be.

Checked the forums and google, but there was not much as to dates other than, "brass discs became standard around 1904". This one is located near UPRR (Oregon Short Line) tracks that were established in 1883. NGS shows this as unknown as to monumentation. The mark is in open BLM land with nothing around it for miles except for the railroad and recently opened farm ground across the tracks.

This mark is made from basalt.

http://img.geocaching.com/benchmark/lg/1fc...abc6bbbf9f6.jpg

[CallawayMT]

Found my first stone benchmark yesterday. NV0739

Just want to get some discussion going as to how old this type of mark might be.

Checked the forums and google, but there was not much as to dates other than, "brass discs became standard around 1904". This one is located near UPRR (Oregon Short Line) tracks that were established in 1883. NGS shows this as unknown as to monumentation. The mark is in open BLM land with nothing around it for miles except for the railroad and recently opened farm ground across the tracks.

This mark is made from basalt.

http://img.geocaching.com/benchmark/lg/1fc...abc6bbbf9f6.jpg

 

t8r,

 

Here is one just like yours that is south of you, near the Golden Spike area of Utah:

G 10 - USBM Stone Post

 

It was set in 1911 with a run of other stones and pipe caps along the Southern Pacific railroad bed.

 

CallawayMT

[+t8r]

CallawayMT,

Perhaps you could share the information on how you found out the date G 10 was set, etc..

The only option i could think of would be to head for the county recorder's office and see if a surveyor recorded any notes referring to K 4.

Any ideas on how those letter/number designations were generated?

[square nail]

t8r,

Here is a link to another one of the chiseled square posts. They seem to have something to do with railroad construction.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=QY0021

 

square nail

[DaveD]

I'll check the records when I return to the office next week and let you know when this mark was set.

[CallawayMT]

CallawayMT,

Perhaps you could share the information on how you found out the date G 10 was set, etc..

The only option i could think of would be to head for the county recorder's office and see if a surveyor recorded any notes referring to K 4.

Any ideas on how those letter/number designations were generated?

T8r,

 

I know that the pipe caps with the same run naming convention were completed at the same time, so I can see that J3 was set in 1907 which would have been in the same run as K3 which was stamped 1907 as Square Nail pointed out. Just the same G10 was set in 1911 in the same run as H10 which is stamped 1911.

 

These are good old monuments for sure.

 

CallawayMT

[ArtMan]

Seems other posters are thinking the same way that I am, that this mark probably dates to approximately the time the railroad came through the area, which t8r says was in the early 1880s. When rail is laid, grade is important, which is why many real benchmarks (for elevation) are located on or near railroad rights-of-way. Also, with many (most? all 19th century?) western railroads came grants of land along the track, and when land is being granted and subsequently sold, it needs to be surveyed, and while this marker has only scaled coordinates, it may have been part of that process. But I would be more inclined to believe it was set as part of the surveying for the railroad.

 

Are there any other similar monuments in the area? If so, there may be clues on those datasheets?

 

-ArtMan-

[Z15]

I doubt the USBM's were set for the building of the RR but more likely because that was the easy way to go and often the only way. Roads were few and far between in remote areas. Also, concrete posts like that were a lot easier to transport along a RR than backpacking into the wildness.

Edited May 16, 2007 by Z15

[+Black Dog Trackers]

This one in New York City's Central Park is another example of an incut square. No USBM though; just a B.

 

This one is admittedly rather different, being a USC&GS mark with a round hole instead of an incut square, but I thought I'd throw it in as well. The documentation looks like it is saying the monumentation was in 1941, but reading between the lines, it is likely much older and 1941 is the observation date.

 

Interesting old non-disk markers.

[mloser]

I won't argue about the date, since I don't have any research to back me up, but the early 1900s seems quite possible based on what I have seen. Although disks seem to have been used starting in 1900 or so (there is a thread on this somewhere on this board), I am sure there was some overlap. And, thinking about it, most of the 1900-ish disks I have seen or read about were mounted in existing structures such as churches, bridges, post offices and not in concrete posts. I wouldn't bet a lot on it, but I would make the general statement that even though disks were being set in 1907-1913, they were only set in structures at that time, and that free-standing marks were still mostly stone posts.

 

The key to this mark, in my opinion, is that it is marked USBM. To me that means it was set by an official agency of some sort. Railroads set lots of bench marks, but none that I have ever seen were marked like this post. All along the PRR in my area are chiseled marks, bolts, and even one stone post. These seem to have been set when the railroad was built in an area--they are often on old stone bridges, rock outcrops, etc, and are often marked "BM" and a number, sometimes unmarked.

 

Later, the USGS/CGS came through and included these marks in their database, and often set disks when they wanted marks where none existed, or where old ones had been destroyed. They are set on bridges, signals, station platforms, etc.

 

I agree totally with Z15--the reason these bench marks were set along railroads was because the railroads were accessible--in remote areas they were the only way to get somewhere--and also because they were considered permanant. In 1900 who would have dreamed that the amount of railroad trackage would stop growing, much less decline to a fraction of what it was then (it grew through the 1920s, dropped a bit in the 1930s, and then fell precipitously through the 1960s and 1970s)? Railroads were forever, the future! To see some of the railcar-based observation platforms take a look at the CGS photo gallery. It is hard to imaging being allowed to use any of the marks that sit close to the tracks these days--train frequencies along some lines exceed 100 per day, and the railroads would never allow train stoppage, much less letting a crew motor along their tracks for weeks at a time!

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

This Granite post is located in Iron County, Utah. North of Lund, Utah.

 

U 8 / JO0308

 

It also is "Unknown" Monumented date and along a railroad. There is a line of benchmarks all along there, but most are not accessible.

 

Shirley~

[+shorbird]

Most of the ones around here look like this.

[+t8r]

The answer is 1903. My bench mark was placed in 1903 as part of a leveling project across Idaho, Wyoming and Utah, along the railroad.

DaveD provided the info and a link to the PDF containing the report.

That report provided some interesting. unrelated reading, as reports often do.

The article on locating Honolulu, Guam, Midway and Manila was very interesting. It took over six months of research and running back and fourth by steamship to determine the precise time lag on the new undersea cable, in order to synchronize clocks to make an accurate star based observation.

Here is the link to the NOAA Central Library, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Annual Reports

Thanks Dave.