James "Louie" Filkins provided Rotary with an overview of the US Public Land Survey System and the role of the county surveyor. Louie's first slide showed us Mount Rushmore, which he said most people see as four presidents. A surveyor sees “three surveyors and another guy”. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both worked as surveyors. Thomas Jefferson’s father was a land surveyor, and Thomas Jefferson created the land survey system that is used in the US except in Texas and in the territory of the original 13 colonies. In 1803 Jefferson undertook buying the area around New Orleans and wound up with Louisiana and the middle of America North America all the way up to Canada (2400 times what he planned to buy). Being a surveyor back in that day was very lucrative because the surveyors were often paid in land and they knew where the best land was since they had just surveyed it.
The United States Public Land Survey System uses north–south lines called meridian lines and east-west lines that cross the meridians. The major divisions created by north-south and east-west lines are known as township lines. The six-mile square block of land thus created is called a township. The point where lines cross is marked in a process called monumentation. Long ago this was done with a cedar post. In 1860 it was a buried vertical stone and later an iron stake and after that an aluminum stake. Since these markers are found with a magnetic locator, and aluminum is not magnetic, a magnet is attached to the stake. Burr Oaks and White Oaks were used as Bearing Trees which are a special kind of witness tree which the surveyors notched, blazed, and scribed in a standard way to facilitate the relocation of the survey corner should the wooden corner post or corner stone be lost or moved.
Pierce county was one of the first counties in Wisconsin surveyed because of its easy access based on its location near the Mississippi River.
About the Speaker: James "Louie" Filkins is a nearly life-long resident of River Falls. His family owned a service station on Main Street for about 50 years. He graduated from River Falls High School in 1983 and the University of Wisconsin in 1989 with a Civil Engineering degree.
He is currently the Pierce County Surveyor and owner of Ogden Engineering in River Falls. He has been a county surveyor since 2009. He described the US Public Land Survey System and his role as County Surveyor. The county surveyor job is a unique combination of historian, archaeologist, laborer, mathematician, attorney, politician, and draftsman.
Public Land Survey System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System