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[intro music playing]
The Bureau of Land Management's Cadastral Surveys program has roots that go back more
than two centuries.
From the nation's first surveys of public land after the Revolutionary War, to current
efforts to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands, the
Cadastral Surveys program is the latest chapter in America's public land heritage.
The Cadastral Surveys program is responsible for surveying all federal interest and Indian
lands.
The program also provides direct support to the BLM's minerals, realty, law enforcement,
forestry, recreation, and fire programs.
And as interest has increased in renewable energy, the program is meeting the needs of
wind, geothermal, and solar projects, as well.
The program's work helps maintain the legal structure for title ownership of land in the
West and large parts of the eastern United States.
The program's roots go back to 1785, two years after the end of the Revolutionary War.
That's when the United States began to survey its new public lands under the Land Ordinance.
The Land Ordinance allowed the young nation to sell land to help repay debts from the
fight for independence.
The groundwork for the surveys began in August 1785.
That month, surveyors drove a wooden post into a spot along the north bank of the Ohio
River.
From that location, called the "Point of Beginning," the U.S. could legally survey
and sell its new public lands.
The surveys established the nation's public domain, and helped to determine land ownership.
The BLM's cadastral program was the result of a series of Congressional actions.
In 1789, Congress created the Treasury Department to oversee the sale of the public lands.
As more people bought land, the General Land Office, or GLO, was created in 1812 to handle
the workload.
Then in 1849, Congress created the Department of the Interior, which acquired the GLO.
In 1946, the GLO merged with the U.S. Grazing Service to create the BLM.
Today, the BLM's Cadastral Surveys program manages more than 9 million title documents
and survey records from across the nation.
The records tell the rich history of the American frontier, beginning with public lands transactions
in the states east of the Mississippi River, through the settlement of the West.
Field notes recount interactions with Native American tribes and accounts of the landscapes
in which surveyors worked.
Many of those records are being scanned and indexed, making the records widely accessible
for research and review.
Since 1785, nearly 1.5 billion acres have been surveyed into townships and sections
and marked with permanent structures like benchmarks.
There are about 2.6 million section corners throughout the United States, each one located
about a mile apart.
This project required a vast expenditure of human energy.
Surveyors carried heavy equipment through dense forests and swamps, across prairies
and up mountains.
They also cut trails to clear the way for chains, or dug pits to set markers. All this
was done in unfamiliar territory.
Journals kept by surveyors suggest hard work in tough conditions.
In fact, crew members who helped set the Point of Beginning in 1785 suffered injuries from
falling trees and had to endure constant rain.
The Point of Beginning is one of at least 37 other initial points used in the rectangular
survey system in the United States.
These points can be used as reference points when the BLM's cadastral program completes
new surveys, or conducts resurveys to find survey corners that have been obliterated
or lost.
Many key historical figures were involved in surveying, adding to the cadastral program's
rich history.
Thomas Jefferson worked as a surveyor.
His rectangular survey system was enacted into law by the Land Ordinance.
Jefferson's method forms the backbone of America's land surveys.
One of his key ideas was that land should be surveyed before it is sold.
Long before he was the first president of the United States, George Washington mastered
surveying as a young man.
By 17 years old, he was already a registered surveyor.
Benjamin Banneker, a famous surveyor and astronomer in the late 1700s, conducted the first survey
of Washington, D.C.
And U.S. presidents at one time signed all land patents, which confirmed the transfer
of the land into private ownership.
For more than 200 years, federal land surveyors have been identifying the boundaries of the
federal estate and at the same time shaping the story of America's public land heritage.
The story began right after the Revolutionary War, when a young United States, seeking a
way to repay its war debts, passed the Land Ordinance, set the Point of Beginning and
opened the public lands to private sale.
As more people moved west, Congress found ways to handle the demands of a growing land
business by creating the GLO, the Department of the Interior, and eventually the BLM.
Today, that story continues as more people seek to use the public lands for recreation,
energy development, grazing, timber, and other uses.
The BLM Cadastral Surveys program and its surveyors seek to help advance those uses
while working to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands.