The Creation of Capitol Lands
By the 1870’s, Texas was in need of a new Capitol. Being cash-poor and land rich, the Sixteenth Legislature set aside 3,000,000 acres of the public domain in 1882 to pay for the Capitol building and appointed a Capitol Board composed of the governor, comptroller, treasurer, attorney general, and land commissioner. These 3 million acres, now known as Capitol Land, are located in the Texas Panhandle counties of Bailey, Castro, Dallam, Deaf Smith, Hartley, Hockley, Lamb, Oldham, and Parmer.
Why is it difficult to plot Eastern States?
Since the early maps of America were crude and the motives for production of so many were to claim land, it is important to understand how land was acquired, distributed and transferred during colonial times.
Land that was originally controlled and distributed by the colonial or state governments was known as state-land states. These lands were surveyed and distributed in many different ways, the majority of state-owned lands used the metes and bounds survey systems to legally describe a piece of land.
What is the Carter Coordinate System?
Lacking a sufficient township and range grid system, for the location of its oil and gas wells in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. The Carter Oil Company, now called EXXON, developed an informal land grid system called the Carter Coordinate System.
The Carter Coordinate System is an alphanumeric grid, based on 1-minute sections that mirrors the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), which is based on latitude and longitude.
The Roots of Jeffersonian Public Land Survey
In the infant years of the United States, the simple British system of metes and bounds was the primary method of land survey. The Colonies plotted property lines based on bounds from both natural and man-made markers. Although generally the shapes were rectangular, a bulk of the plotted land resulted in irregular shapes which eventually led to more complicated and problematical surveys.