Introduction
Since I started working on Idaho, I started thinking about the next project. Many items in Idaho shared crews and surveyors with Montana, like state lines, the international boundary, and Yellowstone Park.
Montana also shared the same data source, the federal indexes on the BLM website. I began a list that would keep track of the Montana surveyors as they were encountered, but that was somewhat inadequate. What was needed was at least the structure of the tables as they exist in my files for the other states. When Montana surveyors were discovered, the details could be reported in the usual table as the other states.
That is what this page on Montana is about. Once it was created, and 3-4 years of Montana surveys were added to test the structure, it would be a shame not to post in on the website, even as sparse as the data is.
There are differences in the data source verus Idaho: the Mineral Surveys will not list by Mineral Surveyor; some exterior boundaries do not have field notes in the index; there are no field notes for the Montana Mineral Surveys; and then, is there another data source not found?; etc. Maybe someone more familiar with Montana can help in the future, because there are surely answers to these issues.
Anyhow, the data posted will be a teaser in the meantime until the focus on Montana gets started in earnest.
Jerry Olson.
wcrolsons@tds.net
Walter Washington de Lacey, U. S. Deputy surveyor in Washington before moving to Montana in the same capacity. He was important in the determination of the Montana Initial Point, and became a Montana USDS and USDMS. Nearing old age, he resided in Helena as Chief Clerk in the Surveyor General's office.
