FOUR ST. LOUIS AREA COUNTIES ENTER INTO
SURVEY MONUMENT RESTORATION CONTRACT
ROLLA, MO, NOV. 6, 2008 -- The Missouri Department of Natural Resources recently entered into contracts with Franklin, Gasconade, Montgomery and Warren county commissioners and their respective county surveyors to help restore land survey monuments.
The following county surveyors and commissions are under contract to restore land corner monuments of the U.S. Public Land Survey System with the department's Land Survey Program: Cameron Lueken, Franklin County; Paul Dopuch, Gasconade County; Bart Korman, Montgomery County and Robert Lewis, Warren County. The department's Land Survey Program in Rolla is responsible for maintaining the land survey system in Missouri. This system serves as the foundation for all land titles in the state and provides the framework for establishing property boundaries and land boundary corners. "These cooperative agreements with county governments allow the division to accomplish the goal of maintaining our state's survey monuments while using the expertise of the county surveyors in this important endeavor," said Joe Gillman, state geologist and Division of Geology and Land Survey director. "This fiscal year, 379 monuments will be restored."
The Land Survey Program was created in 1969 when the Missouri General Assembly realized that more than 90 percent of the original survey markers in the state had been destroyed or obliterated. This situation created major problems with property boundary decisions. The original markers, some made of wood posts, rocks or mounds of earth, were established in Missouri between 1815 and 1855, and many have been lost through time. Since the mid-1970s, more than 8,000 new markers have been replaced or re-established by the county surveyors with funds provided by the various county commissions and the Department of Natural Resources. Today, new permanent monuments are placed that are made of aluminum pipes, iron rods, concrete markers or iron pipes with caps stamped to identify the corner.
Projects
Visitors to the department's Web site are now able to perform a number of searches from their home computers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on the vast holdings at the state's Land Survey Repository. Searches on the Land Survey Index include legal descriptions (township, range and section), subdivision plats, U.S. survey number, General Land Office plats and field notes by township, surveyor name or number and City of St. Louis city blocks and roads. Additional information about the department's Land Survey Program may be found on the Web at www.dnr.mo.gov/geology/landsurvey/. For news releases, visit www.dnr.mo.gov/newsrel.
GASCONADE AND MARIES COUNTIES
RECEIVE ASSISTANCE FROM DEPARTMENT TO
RESTORE AND ESTABLISH SURVEY CORNERS
ROLLA, MO, MAY 23, 2008 -- Surveying work has begun as a result of a request from local surveyors and the Gasconade County commissioners to have a 12-mile stretch of the boundary between Gasconade and Maries counties retraced. Corners of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) which define this boundary will be remonumented.
The boundary's original survey corners were marked in the 1800s by 4-foot wooden posts, large stones and in some instances, by marking trees. Many of these markers have been damaged or obliterated. Subsequently, they are not easily identifiable by property owners as official monuments that control property boundaries.
When a lack of monumentation exists, it is necessary to retrace surveys of boundary lines to recover the original corners and to reestablish others. Section corners are used by surveyors to determine property line boundaries, road right of ways, and subdivision and condominium boundaries.
Thirty-six standardized section corner markers made of durable materials that will withstand the weather, construction and on occasion, vandalism will be placed along this boundary. The project was contracted with Paul G. Dopuch and Gasconade County Land Surveying of Hermann.
In the early 1970s, the department began a process of recovery and preservation of the state's section corners that have been damaged or obliterated. More than 7,000 new markers have been replaced or reestablished by the various county surveyors with funds provided by the department. Today, there are more than 13,800 U.S. PLSS corners with geographic or state plane coordinates. Each fiscal year, the department adds more than 2,300 restored corners to a statewide database and places permanent, aluminum monuments at approximately 600 of these important corners.
Serving Gasconade & Surrounding Counties
PHASE I - GASCONADE/
MARIES
COUNTY LINE PROJECT
