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Astro_D 15 years, 2 months ago.
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I was wondering if anyone knew where the oldest benchmark is in Wisconsin? whats the oldest one you have found?
The oldest I have found was placed in 1918. I have seen one listed close to me that was placed in 1903, I haven’t went to locate it yet but I’m sure its probably still there. The coordinates for the one placed in 1903 are off quite a bit from the description, this is closer to actual: N42 46.754 W89 17.958
Best I can tell is 1934 for my oldest.
At our geocache “Treaty Tree of 1847” which is on the MI-WI border where the boundary was established in the early 1800’s the bench mark is actually rectangular, it is dated 1928. This was done by the Joint Boundary Commision of MI-WI in compliance with the degree of the US Supreme Court, which was entered Nov. 22, 1926. There are several very interesting markers in the area.
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Our oldest in WI is 1934 also. Another 1934 one we found is in New Mexico GM0215 near Philmont BSA ranch right where one trail crossed the road. The most elaborate one we found is at the corner of Nebraska and Colorado and includes the touch point of 4 counties in those two states, MN0401. An unusual one for the way it is named is PP2498 Karen. We found that with our son and family before we started using pharmteam
OM0270
1/1/1934 by CGS (MONUMENTED)
DESCRIBED BY COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY 1934 AT OCONOMOWOC. SET IN THE CENTER OF THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE BASE OF SOLDIERS AND SAILORS MEMORIAL IN THE CITY PARK BORDERING LAKE LA BELLE, 54 FEET NORTH OF STREET RUNNING EAST AND WEST, 2 FEET BELOW THE LEVEL OF THE STREET.Found this one at a memorial.
They must have put out a ton of benchmarks in 1934, as I found a couple last week near me and noticed allot of them around here where monumented then.
one I found last week was monumented in 1918, and a few miles to the west I found one a few years back that was monumented at the same time.I’m going to keep looking, I really want to find some really old ones.
Side note: I just found out about this website and it works great for finding bechmarks, even those not listed on the geocaching.com page that you stumble across. http://benchmarks.scaredycatfilms.com/index.html
Are you talking about the brass disks for being oldest? Cause if you are, chances are good you won’t find any older than the early 1900s. If you want older, you need to start searching for those setting stones which were common around the bay area in the 1870s, chiseled squares and chiseled crosses. Or even those copper plugs buried several feet below ground (Rock Island anyone??).
If my memory serves, I think there is an 1870s chiseled square or cross in a Door county park that is still easily recoverable. But unfortunately, there is no date carved into those. So it may be old, but its not the same as finding a disk that is stamped with an “old” date.
The oldest one we have recovered is from 1921. I think. But then again, BMing is far from being remotely about numbers.
I was mostly curious about whats the oldest actual brass benchmark disk people have found, I haven’t actually looked for any of the chiseled crosses or squires.
Obviously these would be older than the Brass disks, but seeing or knowing the date these marks were placed kinda makes them a mark in history when you know exactly how long they have been placed.I guess I will have to try and get that 1903 mark I mentioned in my first post, since that seems to be the oldest I have found so far in the state.
I went and grabbed that 1903 benchmark today, its a bit different looking than some of the other ones I have found. I uploaded a good photo if anyone wanted to see it.
http://www.geocaching.com/mark/log.aspx?LUID=dc6cbbaa-7bc8-4969-933f-70a607721682
The benchmark thing is obviously not an exact science. We’ve found about a dozen that can’t be logged/found on the site.
Another problem is like the one I found in the middle of Bong State Park. It’s been so long I can’t remember the details, but when I looked up the marker and claimed it, all looked fine. But I go back now to view it, and the map puts it nowhere near Bong. It puts it in Burlington near a RR track.
@tyedyeskyguy wrote:
The benchmark thing is obviously not an exact science. We’ve found about a dozen that can’t be logged/found on the site.
yep…same here I found one in Tildea marked “WATERPOWER” and cannot find a benchmark record that matches its location or description correctly….and none where I found the marker.
On each benchmark page you will see just below the listed coordinates it says something like:
“Coordinates may not be exact. Altitude is ADJUSTED and location is SCALED.”if it doesn’t say the altitude & location is adjusted then I believe they just pick a spot off a map nearby and pretty much the coordinates will be off.
allot of benchmarks are just scaled. the ones that are adjusted your gps will pretty much bring you right to it.
I to have found allot of benchmarks that aren’t on the geocaching site. their are a ton of newer ones that were put out in 2001 or 2002 by the Wisconsin DOT that are GPS benchmarks, none of these are on the geocaching website. These locations are great for checking the accuracy of your gps, and you can find some of these on the waymarking website.
Here is an example of a GPS benchmark on waymarking.com that I listed. http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM1MM2
I get the datasheet for those gps benchmarks off the NGS website, then convert their listed coordinates into the format that we all use. so the listed coordinates for any of those GPS benchmarks I have listed were taken with their commercial grade GPS.
The couple times I’ve checked my 60Cx and my VistaCx they were both under 10ft when at those marks, since these units only have 3meter accuracy that’s definitely within that spec.
The Geocaching database only listed the benchmarks in the NGS database up to 1999 or 2000. So there are a lot of benchmarks out there that are not in geocaching database. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be found though. When we go benchmarking, we attempt to recover all the ones in the area – regardless of whether they are in the geocaching database or not.
The other thing is make sure of when looking for benchmarks is that the location matches the description (we barely rely on the coordinates) and the STAMPING on the disc matches EXACTLY what is listed on the page. Many a times we find Reference marks logged as being the station mark or new WIDOT benchmarks being logged as finds for the old NGS benchmarks just because the disc is in the location of where the coordinates and descriptions say it should be. THe big giveaway, is that the stamping on the disc doesn’t match. And most of the newer WIDOTs don’t have any stamping at all.
THe scaled benchmarks can be off by up to half a mile (Hence needing the description), that’s becuae the attempted to plot as accurately as possible on the map. Although the ones we gound ahve never been to terribly far off, so there is something to be said about the acuracy of the scaled marks. THe adjusted listing should put you very close if not right on top of the mark.
Another thing to pay attention to when looking for a mark is the box scores on the NGS datasheets. They can be very useful in helping pinpoint a location.
I found this website that lists the oldest Benchmark in Wisconsin, it’s a chiseled square. Just click on Wisconsin on the map on this site to see the oldest benchmark and a few other notable marks in the state.
@hogrod wrote:
I found this website that lists the oldest Benchmark in Wisconsin, it’s a chiseled square. Just click on Wisconsin on the map on this site to see the oldest benchmark and a few other notable marks in the state.
Holoscene has a great website and is used quite often by serious BM hunters. It’s nice as the stats page is updated monthly with the reports sent to the NGS.
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