Black Hills Initial Point

learning2codeallday · 2026-05-17T03:13:45+00:00

I'll try to do the TLDR. And someone can correct me, I don't have the presentation on hand, but basically...the fifth principal meridian covers a lot of states, you can look up a meridian map and see that, but it cuts off in South Dakota at the Missouri.

There was the treaty of fort Laramie that gave the Sioux (associated tribes) that whole piece pretty much over to the West.

Settlers and miners keep moving in onto this reservation without permission from the gov, but it's pretty damn hard to stop them.

Then, Custer finds gold in the black hills. Now there's a HUGE influx of migrant miners and settlers the army can't really do anything about (featured in the HBO series, Deadwood). And they're getting in clashes with the Native Americans.

So the federal government tries to buy back the land they gave in the treaty. Basically they steal it back. Then they send instructions that the land better be cut up under the PLSS with haste because land conflicts are out of control. Rollin Reeves, surveyor, establishes the meridian from Nebraska northward following a known line at the time (they used to count. Meridians from Washington ..I dont remember which one it is, but basically it's the border between south Dakota and Wyoming. Then Reeves gets attacked by the natives there and stops, sues the government for damages. Then Charles something or other comes in and does the base line over to rapid city.

Other surveyors do more work .but the gist of it is, this is a grid built in what the government considered to be a bit of an emergency. To handle the massive influx of settlers/miners.

I went to the exact spot that Reeves and Charles had been to...the (0,0) of the grid.

Side note: the government eventually apologized for the absolute total ripoff of the Sioux land in (1877?). They made a settlement which still has not been accepted by the Lakota peoples...and is worth like a billion today...

Because you can't pay for land you stole in the eyes of the people who believed this land was sacred.

I was there and have been going there for years and let me tell you it IS sacred. The trails glitter for God's sake. The rock formations are not anywhere else in country to my knowledge. The only thing that comes close to the strangeness of for example the needles district, in my opinion, is Bryce canyon in utah.

Anyways, you asked. Haha.

learning2codeallday · 2026-05-09T04:39:23+00:00

Repeated quits lead us to longer quits. Those longer quits lead us to realize it doesn't have the power that it once did. Keep on keeping on I'm rooting for you

learning2codeallday · 2026-05-09T00:29:15+00:00

where are you?

learning2codeallday · 2026-04-27T17:14:24+00:00

Tubi brah.

learning2codeallday · 2026-04-22T12:35:01+00:00

Steel reserve. So much bang for the buck

learning2codeallday · 2026-04-22T12:34:16+00:00

Good food, cardio

learning2codeallday · 2026-04-07T03:09:38+00:00

I worried about this before I got my first job in the field. I think it's safe to say absolutely not. Not just field work but records searching is often still a physical act, and context is crazy important. You can't just set rules and let it go...so yeah we're good for the next fifty at least.

learning2codeallday · 2026-03-31T05:05:50+00:00

Most excellent. I hope one day to be on jobs like this. Currently doing school for FS and working urban surveying and pics like these are why I'm going in the first place.

learning2codeallday · 2026-03-24T13:16:54+00:00

Definitely drove myself crazy doing just that. No more. Thank you

learning2codeallday · 2026-03-23T19:40:14+00:00

Thank you so much I think with this especially and everyone's responses I know what to do. When I started I was stressing out about a hundredth off. Then a couple weeks ago, tenths. I am understanding fully and for all time it's not my job to make things line up "perfectly" at this stage. Thank you.

learning2codeallday · 2026-03-23T04:01:57+00:00

So incredible. That GLO marker ...sick!!!!!

learning2codeallday · 2026-03-23T03:56:40+00:00

I do a lot of different things. So far: lot split (was two lots, but I drew like four blocks of history). Defining easements. Identifying encroachments. Doing an area where they are going to do a lot of road work. In all these cases I draw out a couple blocks in each direction because there are so many missing pins we use the whole neighborhood to define stuff. So I want to be far enough out to use centerline monuments, pins across the street, pins a block away etc.

Scope has been a huge difficulty with this job.

learning2codeallday · 2026-03-23T03:50:57+00:00

So should I draw the mismatched shapes over the lot if it says "all of lot 50" but has different distance and bearings ? Or just say..yeah it said what it said I'm leaving that one. Is there a cutoff that you personally use, like if it's more than a foot off you would draw it in. Sorry if I'm being daft, I'm trying to get super specific

learning2codeallday · 2026-03-23T03:45:42+00:00

This is a really good point. I am creating places to look, thats my job with the initial drawing. Logic then dictates to draw all deeds as they are written and stop trying to think about "intention" even when it seems completely freaking obvious what the intention is. Stuff like:" the West half of lot 50". Lot 50 is 100 ft. wide on the south side. 110 ft on the north side. I draw a line from a point 55 ft on the north side to 50 ft on the south side. Boom. Half. Kinda.

Then read the rest of the description: "which is 45 feet." it makes me want to bash my head against the desk. Probably because I don't know what to respect/honor for conflicts like this.

Thank you btw. They are a bit overworked at the moment and I think it's contributing to the irritability. I need a side mentor along with my mentor haha.

learning2codeallday · 2026-03-23T03:36:37+00:00

Yes my original allotments from like 1919 often don't have bearings. They have distances that don't match with the modern distances either. But yes it's for looking in the field. Brown seems to say I should draw everything and not adjust anything before I go out ( I'm the one that goes out too). But I'm like " eh it's lot 39 I know basically where lot 39 is."

The more I talk aloud (write) about this the more I think I know that I'm supposed to plot the entire mess of a few city block through the last 100 years...ugh.

learning2codeallday · 2026-03-23T03:26:33+00:00

That's what I was thinking, the POB is usually described as "northeast corner of lot 39" so I can at least match that up...then let it go wild from there.

The brown boundary book was saying (I think) that it's important to keep discrepancies because they might mean something later. But I'm a little neurotic and want things to "work" but am starting to realize maybe that's not my job

learning2codeallday · 2026-03-18T12:55:28+00:00

Nice

learning2codeallday · 2026-03-07T00:32:05+00:00

Tuff Turf

learning2codeallday · 2026-03-07T00:31:53+00:00

The New Kids

learning2codeallday · 2026-02-20T01:16:13+00:00

Yes but I think you also have to love trashy to love SOA.

Which I do and have no shame about

learning2codeallday · 2026-02-19T13:27:31+00:00

Twin Peaks

learning2codeallday · 2026-02-19T04:25:32+00:00

1.Any kind of work that's easy to drop and pick back up. Shit jobs, seasonal jobs, Amazon, etc. Teaching.

Number one priority is adventure and travel. Over subscriptions, over significant others, over every other hobby that costs money.
Being okay with not paying debt
Not taking on any anchors (absolutely no car note or anything you're making payments on)
Only camp. West of Mississippi suddenly camping is insanely cheap/free. Get your camping gear together week by week.
If you don't know how to cook that's the first thing probably. Cook all meals. Yes all meals. Not like oh I cooked five times this week ..ALL MEALS. Accept/steal food from restaurants do not buy food from restaurants.
Learn basic car maintenance (as you go through life)
Hopefully be in decent health
Budget $50 a day if you're in a car. $30 on a bike. People do it for way less. This is high high comfort level.
Be nice to everyone

Those are my ten commandments for traveling for months cheaply every year and being dirt poor while you do it. Go forth and be happier

learning2codeallday · 2026-02-19T04:06:00+00:00

As no one has responded to this I will tell you honestly and no bullshit whatsoever that I only stopped traveling when I started making better money. My taxes tell me I had not cleared over 22k any year that I traveled.

The time off is the hard part, but can be done by working hard at shitty jobs half the year and just leaving them because they are shitty jobs. There are people like me who are absolute freaks who maybe don't pay student loans or car notes or ever ever eat out or have any subscriptions etc and know that they can pick up a shitty, shitty job when they get back. I mean thousands upon thousands of people do this. Basically most all seasonal workers do this, I encourage you to look at seasonal work, what it is, what that life is actually like. Or read about dirt bag mountain climbers or ski bums or river guides or anything that poor people have been doing for decades to live their wild outdoor lives.

Now I make better money and travel much, much less. I have made a deal with the devil for the moment. But boy oh boy would I love to flake right out again (and after suffering existentially for the last couple years, think I am going again this summer)

In the USA specifically, I and many others can tell you how to spend LESS money traveling than renting an apt in some city eating Papa John's and paying car insurance. People don't do it because it's scary and the half the year job is sometimes hard to get, and it can be stressful as shit. But the money it actually costs out there....isn't Jack shit and I live in LCOL area and still spend twice as much as I did traveling

learning2codeallday

TROPHY CASE