The Original Government Surveys as a Field Research Tool
Tue, 11/28/2023 - 12:00am
Editor’s Note: The annual meeting of the Heart of the Flint Hills Chapter of the Santa Fe Trail Association, an organization that encompasses the four counties of Morris, Wabaunsee, Lyon, and Osage where the Santa Fe Trail passed through, was held recently. The guest speaker was Steve S Brosemer, P. S. #752, a Kansas Surveyor. Hearing him speak took my mind back to the early days of Kansas when travelers passed through our territory not knowing where they were in relation to anything. Our federal government in 1785 set in place methods to survey our country. As Brosemer said, “The familiar standard townships of six miles square became an orderly way to dispose of government lands outside of the Thirteen Colonies.”
