T&P RR Co. svys in Texas
Blane Burns
I have had a good bit of experience working on a survey team and I now
publish a report dealing with oil & gas locations, etc.
My question: Does ANYONE know a little history of the T&P RR Co. surveys
made in Texas? I have some block names in Palo Pinto County, e.g. Block
1, Block 2, etc. These folks emm to have been meticluous in thier naming
of these surveys. Several hundred miles away; all the sudden Block 1
pops up again in Reagan county! I know block 1 is not, and was not that
big! Has some part of the name been droped? Did new surveyors take over
when they got so far west? Any answers or did T&P just mess up? I doubt
it, as they had to keep track of all this Texas land they were
snatching...
John Wallis
The most thorough source would be the two papers written by J.J. Bowden,
an attorney who worked for the Texas and Pacific Lands Trust (TXL) at
their office in Dallas. He wrote one paper in the early 1960s on the T&P
Reserve east of the Pecos River. This was published by the Texas
Surveyors Association (now the Tx.Society of Prof.Surveyors) in their
annual conference Proceedings about 1964. Other material of a more
anecdotal nature was printed in their hardback volume "One League to
Each Wind." Bowden also wrote a later paper dealing with the T&P surveys
west of the Pecos River in a monograph published by the Univ. of Texas
at El Paso press and should still be in print. Mr. Bowden later moved to
Midland, Texas, and was employed by a law firm. He retired in the early
1990s and took up a new vocation as a missionary to central America. If
you cannot find these papers in your local library you could try Anne
Glasgow, Exectuve Director, at the TSPS state office in Austin.
Regards
John Wallis
Kent McMillan
In article <341430...@oilworld.com>, Blane Burns <peco...@oilworld.com> says:
>
>I have had a good bit of experience working on a survey team and I now
>publish a report dealing with oil & gas locations, etc.
>My question: Does ANYONE know a little history of the T&P RR Co. surveys
>made in Texas? I have some block names in Palo Pinto County, e.g. Block
>1, Block 2, etc. These folks emm to have been meticluous in thier naming
>of these surveys. Several hundred miles away; all the sudden Block 1
>pops up again in Reagan county! I know block 1 is not, and was not that
>big! Has some part of the name been droped? Did new surveyors take over
>when they got so far west? Any answers or did T&P just mess up? I doubt
>it, as they had to keep track of all this Texas land they were
>snatching...
Snatching? The lands were all granted by act of the Texas legislature to
encourage the construction of railroads. It worked. There were some lands
appropriated by the T&P under land certificates that were later held invalid
(The Canda Case a.k.a. The Turnouts and Sidings Case) but those lands were
recovered by the State of Texas.
I just finished doing some work in the vicinity of T&P Rwy Co. Block 1 on
the border with Mexico in Presidio County, (Texas). That Block 1 is a string
of about 60 640 acre surveys stair-stepping up the Rio Grande. There are
most likely more T&P Blocks numbered 1 in our state.
I think that the answer to why there are several T&P Blocks is attributable
to probably two main reasons, namely:
1. I don't have a Texas GLO map handy, but I'll bet that the T&P Block 1 in Reagan
County is within a specific reservation created by legislative act, the so-called
80 mile reservation East of the Pecos, and the Palo Pinto block is not.
2. I'll bet that the T&P Blocks in present Palo Pinto County were in a different
land district than those in present Reagan County, and so the field notes were
returned to a different District Surveyor. An attempt was made to keep block
names unique within each land district and the counties later formed out of them.
John Wallis' reference to the J.J. Bowden monograph is right on target. If you
want to learn a good bit about the T&P Surveys in the so-called 80 mile reservation
West of the Pecos, that would be the place to start.
Best regards,
Kent McMillan, RPLS
Austin TX
Kent McMillan
Rather than guessing, I should have pulled out Bowden’s monograph (J.J.
Bowden, Surveying The Texas and Pacific Land Grant West of the Pecos River,
Texas Western Press, The University of Texas at El Paso, 1975).
May 2, 1873 the Texas Legislature authorized the Texas and Pacific Railway
Company to receive twenty alternate sections of land for every mile of main
or branch track completed. The legislation provided for the reservation of an
80 mile wide strip of land West of the 100th meridian of longitude (the
meridian boundary between Texas and what is presently Oklahoma) within which
the T & P Rwy Company would have priority for locating their land certificates
until January 1, 1880.
The T & P Rwy Company was to survey at their own cost both the lands granted
to them and the alternate sections reserved by the State. The T & P Rwy
Company plan for the 80 mile reservation does not have duplicate block and
township numbers in the portion West of the Pecos River, and probably does
not in the part East of the Pecos either.
Palo Pinto County is not within either reservation, however. Moreover, it was
in a different Land District. The lands of Palo Pinto County fell in Milam
and Robertson Land Districts. What is now Reagan County was in Bexar Land
District.
Tammy Barnett
Tammy Barnett
Thanks for any help.