As one drives across Kansas it doesn’t take long to recognize the checkerboard organization of the state. That organization of property is essentially the same in other states but perhaps not so obvious as within the boundaries of the “Wheat State.”

Every particular parcel of land can be identified as a legal location with it’s own “address,” of section, township, range, and if needed, smaller divisions. The system that is used today was introduced as an essential part of democracy by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Prior survey of the land provided a legal foundation for land ownership among all citizens, even if only in small portions, giving the opportunity to less than wealthy citizens to own property.

Known today as the United States Public Land Survey System (PLSS) the north-south, east-west rectangular grid became official government policy through the Land Ordinance of 1785. Following the Kansas-Nebraska Act of May 30, 1854, Congress extended, on July 22, 1854, the PLSS, under the auspices of the General Land Office, to include the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. With the support of Sen. Stephan A. Douglas, President Franklin Pierce appointed John Calhoun as surveyor general of both Kansas and Nebraska Territories. Calhoun, a northern Democrat, was a threetime mayor of Springfield, Ill., rising to Illinois state representative. He was a trained surveyor and though from an opposing political party, counted Abraham Lincoln among his friends.

Calhoun began his appointment as the Kansas-Nebraska Surveyor General with a call for all proprietors of towns established on the former Indian lands west of the Missouri River to report to his office at Fort Leavenworth to determine legal limits prior to the U. S. survey of the north territories.

The “base line” boundary between Kansas and Nebraska was determined on the parallel of 40 degrees north latitude. The 40th parallel was located on a bluff above the west bank of the Missouri River by Capt. Thomas J. Lee, U. S. Topographical Engineers, through astronomical calculation with the latest instruments available. That initial point of survey was marked 52.55 chains west of the river to keep it from washing out. The site was marked with a wooden stake surrounded by a mound of stones. A cast iron monument now marks the location near present-day White Cloud, Kan.

The principal base line survey was initially limited to 180 miles west of the Missouri River out of “apprehensions of hostile interruptions from the Indians.” The northsouth meridian line is known as the Sixth Principal Meridian near present-day Mahaska, Kan. Extending southward to Kansas’ southern boundary of 37 degrees north latitude two miles east of Hunnewell, Kan.

Surveys were to be oriented from the meridian line and specific instructions were given for establishing the survey.

“The deputy surveyor was required to record specific features in his field book as the survey proceeded. When crossing a stream or ravine on the line of survey the distance was noted. Notation was recorded of every natural object, whether hill, mountain, ridge, lake, pond, swamp or marsh, ledge of rocks, stone quarry, mineral locality, as well as the kind of mineral. When entering prairie, woodland, swamp or overflow, and when leaving the same, the geological features were to be recorded, “all to be carefully ascertained and appropriately set forth in his line field book.”

The line field book was required to be “free from blots, blurs, and interlineations of any kind which would throw the least doubt on the true meaning of such book.”

In the eyes of the General Land Office, the line field book was a sacred permanent record to be revered and protected. A certified copy was to be delivered to the office of the Surveyor General, to this office, accompanied by appropriate plats of the lines. Today the line field book remains on file in each county in which the survey was completed. Certified copies and attending records are now held by the Kansas Historical Society.

Proceeding west along the principal base line appropriate boundary corners were marked “at every half mile for quarter sections, at every mile for sections, and at every sixth mile for townships.” The field notes of the surveyor in the field, Joseph P. Johnson, were approved by Calhoun on Jan. 12, 1855.

Unfortunately, Calhoun suffered an embarrassing set-back when surveyor Charles Manners discovered the survey of the all-important base line was in error. The Department of the Interior “set aside” the survey and 60 miles of the base line were ordered resurveyed. To deal with the wave of squatters (settlers) the 60-mile location known as the First Guide Meridian East, near present-day Summerfield, Kan., became the immediate point of reference instead of the Sixth Principal Meridian at the one hundred eight-mile mark. When the corrected survey did reach the Sixth Principal Meridian the invalid monument was found to be over two miles south of the resurveyed position.

With a fresh start from the corrected base line, township corners were established for each range and the unmistakable checkerboard pattern of the Kansas countryside commenced in earnest on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st RD Geneseo, KS. Phone (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.