General Land Office Surveyors of Idaho

Introduction

Well, as I was nearing the end of writing and researching about the last 20 GLO surveyors in Oregon, I could feel withdrawal symptoms showing up. What to do? My wife and I have property in Idaho where we spend quite a bit of time, and the GLO Surveyors of Oregon and Washington crossed over the border and performed significant surveying there. So why not?

With Idaho, we are truly starting from scratch. No Steve Johnson lists to work from, no 40 years of boots on the ground or library poking, nonetheless 2020 seemed like a good time to start the Idaho research. The Surveyor General’s Reports to the Commissioner occurred regularly each year from 1867-1904, and then stopped (or rather, petered out). The ones up until then were very thorough, listing at least the Contracts and the Special Instructions. That would form the basis of the new Idaho history section. The last six years of the Contract Era, 1904-1910, are in process of being mined very awkwardly via the Federal BLM website. There are no adequate filters or Contract numbers until you dig very deep. I was able to finally get all the Contracts (minus eight that are unknown so far) and am starting to create surveyor files. The data entry of course is very manual into excel. There may be a better way, but this is my way.

One advantage is that about 25% of the surveys were done by Oregon or Washington Surveyors, and I already have the research completed, except for the Idaho work. Partial data will be posted regularly as Surveyors and Contracts are added.

Withdrawal symptoms are gone,
Jerry Olson

Jerry Olson: jolson@olsonengr.com or wcrolsons@tds.net