PLSO Oregon Surveyor Vol. 40 No. 6

Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org 15 Denny DeMeyer, PLS, a land surveyor in Blaine, Washington, and co-chairman of North American Land Surveyors, says, “Everything ahead of society was done by surveyors. No gov- ernment land was sold, no towns or cities platted, no railroads, canals, irrigation channels, roads constructed, or mines devel- oped without them.” Garland Burnett has spent more than 40 years in land survey- ing and is recognized as an expert witness in ancient boundary cases for New Mexico courts. At one point, he worked for the U.S. Forest Service and became familiar with 19th-century sur- veyors whose work he retraced. “It’s a complex and confusing profession to most people,” he says. “Our work is somewhat esoteric unless you have some knowledge of math, computer science, geology, history, as- tronomy, and real property law, to name a few. But if you don’t know what happened in the past, you can’t determine what’s needed in the present.” Land, Boundary and Title Consultant James R. Dorsey, PLS, spent more than half a century in surveying, specializing in wetland boundary problems in the Western states. Now retired and liv- ing in Nevada, he is an author, lecturer, and instructor. Dorsey believes that without the orderly location of land by surveyors, range wars would have been even worse, with a “strongest- take-all” attitude. “The contribution by surveyors goes all the way back to our Founding Fathers when they said that all men are created equal,” Dorsey says. “Without that mandate and the definition of pri- vate ownership land, along with the Homestead process that was part of the land survey system by the government, there would have been no migration west—at least nothing orderly.” Marie Bartlett is a North Carolina-based freelance writer, a former member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and a current member of Western Writers of America. Holding a transit, rod and stakes, this allotment crew stood ready to divide land in Pine Ridge, in the newly formed South Dakota, circa 1890s. They were surrounded by, at far right, interpreter Billy Garnett (son of Fort Laramie Gen. Richard B. Garnett and Sioux mother Looks-At-Him), with wife Filla Janis, daughter and three sons. Also shown is John Brennan, wearing a stand up celluloid collar at far left, with son Paul behind him in the doorway; Brennan was probably working as South Dakota railway commissioner, as he wouldn’t become the agent at Pine Ridge until 1900. Images courtesy Denver Public Library One of the first surveys sponsored by legislators on Capitol Hill was led by Dr. Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. These members of the Hayden Expedition work on a rocky slope, in what is probably Wyoming, sometime between 1870–1880. Images courtesy Denver Public Library America’s Transcontinental Railroad would not have been built without surveyors. This Union Pacific surveying crew camp out in Utah’s Weber County, sometime between 1865-1870. Images courtesy Denver Public Library Surveying History