Brea Museum is looking for antique equipment

[JMS8070]

Hi everyone,

My wife was looking at Nextdoor.com and she found a post by the curator of the Brea Museum (Linda Shay, MA) asking if anyone could come and look at some old field books she got from the City of Brea (before they were thrown out). I contacted the curator and offered to come by and take a look. I went yesterday afternoon and had a wonderful time explaining what she had found and, based on her knowledge of the city, together we made a wonderful discovery.

The field books jump around in time a bit but this is generally what we found: books from 1914 (pre-incorporation), 1917 (year of incorporation), 1920s, 1940s, and 1960s. When I told her that the 1914 book was showing the grade staking of Walnut Avenue, she got extremely excited and told me that Walnut was one of the first two streets in the Town of Brea. We then went on through the books and found the staking notes for most of the original town: sewer, water, curb, subdivision housing, etc. The City of Brea almost threw away the staking books for the building of Brea, but Linda grabbed them and will be taking care of them - thank you, Linda!

Next year is Brea's Centennial year and Linda is planning on creating an exhibit showing photographs of different intersections from the early years of Brea and she wants to have these field books open to those intersections' specific pages. I thought that was a great idea, but it would be even better if there could be some old survey equipment around the exhibit as well. I asked her if she had anything and she will look, but doesn't remember seeing anything; however, the City is still clearing out old closets and some may turn up.

In case that search doesn't turn out any equipment, I told her I would reach out to you fine folks and see if any of you would have some antique survey equipment from that era (1900-1920) that you might be willing to LOAN to the Brea Museum for Linda's exhibit. I was thinking a dumpy level, Gunter's chain, chaining pins, transit and tripod would be awesome, but I don't know if it would be possible to get all of that. Anyway, it is Linda's exhibit and it is up to her.

Her name is Linda Shay and she is the curator of the Brea Museum. If you send me a private message, I will give you her email address. Linda is amazed by history. She is the only non-surveyor I have ever seen get excited by looking at staking notes! It was so much fun sitting with her going through these books and I hope we can help her set up this exhibit.

Brea Museum
495 S. Brea Blvd
Brea, CA 92821
http://www.breamuseum.org

[Peter Ehlert]

is The Surveyors Historical Society active in your area? (http://www.surveyorshistoricalsociety.com/)
In days past they had lots of gear to display at conventions and such. Perhaps they could bring their display or even loan some gear.

[PLS7393]

As Peter said, SHS use to be active, but they are concentrated more back east with a few west coast members.
The Mount Diablo Surveyors Historical Society (www.mdshs.org) is your local historical society, but don't have many, if any members is Southern CA.
Duncan Marshall is the current Chairman and he would be the one to contact. You can always leave an email on the website.