Pub. 12 2017 Issue 1

27 Issue 1 2017 / UCLS Foresights www.ucls.org The Re-Monumentation of the Tri-State Monument for Arizona, Nevada, and Utah D uringtheUtahCouncilofLandSurveyors(UCLS)2016Con- vention thatwasheldat theDixieConventionCenter inSt. George Utah, Daniel W. Webb approached several UCLS board members and hinted that UCLS should consider re-monumenting the Tri-State Monument located at the northwest corner of Arizona, the southwest corner of Utah, and theeasterly state line of Nevada. He works for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and is the Chief Cadastral Surveyor, Utah State Office. In the past, the UCLS and the BLM worked together to re-monument several other monuments over the years. The last two were 1) the Uintah Special Meridian (USM) Initial Point in2009and2) theTri-State corner located at Idaho, Nevada, and Utah in 1999. During its June 11, 2016 board meeting, the UCLS Executive Board discussed this re-monumentation project and unanimous- ly approved moving forward with it. Since the project location is located within the boundaries of its Color Country Chapter, this project was assigned to them to take to task. Todd E. Jacobsen, PLS and Color Country Chapter President, sent a formal email to the BLM Arizona, Nevada, and Utah Cadastral Survey Chiefs out- lining and requesting BLM’s involvement. He also sent emails to the Arizona Professional Land Surveyors (APLS) and the Nevada Association of Land Surveyors (NALS) association boards seeking their assistance in the project as well. On July 6, 2016, shortly after this assignment was given, Todd, Bob H. Hermandson, PLS and Color Country Chapter Vice President, and Michael Draper, PLS and UCLS Color Country member, visited the site to get a feel for what it looked like, what condition it was in, and what needed to be done to make this project work. After some thoughts and discussion it was decided that we needed to hold a chapter luncheon and start discussing the details and answer what, why, how, and who for making this project happen. Note: At this point, the existing monument was a red sand- stone shaft that (according to survey notes) had a shaft six feet long, 16 inches broad and 12 inches thick. From the top down it was dressed (or smoothed out) 8 inches and was marked with letters 1½ inch square engraved deeply in the stone. There are four sides (or faces) to this monument, as follows: • NEVADA on the N.W. face • UTAH on the N.E. face • ARIZONA on the S.E. face • INTL. MONT 37 N. L. 1901 on the S.W. face Also according to the survey notes, there was a raised mound of stones with a 5½ foot base and 2½ feet high that surrounded the shaft. The stones were mostly still there. The monument stood about 3 – 3½ feet above the ground. This monument was set in 1901. When seen on this outing, it showed signs of weathering and some graffiti (engravings from some of its visitors), but all in all it was still in decent condition. The Color Country Chapter began to hold several luncheons where a number of designs of the new monument were pre- sented and those who attended discussed the types of tools and materials that would be needed. We were sure that we want- ed to complete this project before the next UCLS convention that was to be held in February of 2017 so we could hold a rib- bon-cutting type ceremony in conjunction with the convention. Since the BLM, APLS, and NALS organizations were too far away for attending these luncheons to be practical, Todd kept in touch with them via emails and phone calls and kept everyone up to date on the plans for the re-monumentation project. During this same time, the BLM was also busy doing its own planning for a proposed re-survey of the State lines. They were also busy performing records research, which resulted in a number of ex- cellent pieces of information to aid us in this project. BY TODD E. JACOBSEN, PLS UCLS, COLOR COUNTRY CHAPTER PRESIDENT c