California Surveyors Forums

Hi. I'm currently reading the 6th edition of Boundary Control and Legal Principles. The back cover says this:

"Curtis M. Brown (deceased) was formerly a partner of Brown Hall, Sacramento, California."

Everything I've seen on the web indicates he was based in the San Diego area. I wouldn't be shocked if the book is wrong, though it would be a pretty dumb blunder. Just curious.

Ben Erickson

Brown and Hall were in San Diego. The indication of Sacramento is a misprint - a publishing blunder.

Mike Pallamary has written a very nice biography of Curt in "The Curt Brown Chronicles". It says Brown spent his entire career in San Diego and became a principle of Daniels, Brown and Hall upon obtaining his license "LS 2554".

Curt Brown may have lived in San Diego, but he performed work in this area. He performed a boundary survey along a portion of the Sacramento - San Joaquin County line.

I retraced a portion of his work in +/-2006, just south of Galt.

A joint effort by two retracing surveyors, signed by two County Surveyors, and filed in two Counties. Lotsa seals ...

I also have used maps prepared/signed by Curt Brown in the Sacramento area.

The reference to Sacramento is an error.

If you are interested in Curt, you can acquire a book of his writings or watch for the columns in The American Surveyor magazine.

http://www.amerisurv.com/PDF/TheAmerica ... l10No7.pdf





http://www.amazon.com/The-Curt-Brown-Ch ... 1452090513

Thanks for the responses. This confirmed my suspicions that it was an error. Interesting to hear that he apparently did do some work in the Sacramento area, though.

Ben

Stan_K wrote:Curt Brown may have lived in San Diego, but he performed work in this area. He performed a boundary survey along a portion of the Sacramento - San Joaquin County line.

I retraced a portion of his work in +/-2006, just south of Galt.

The question I have is were you able to find his set points per his map ?
Respectfully, I don't mean to disparage anyone by any means, we all highly value his writings and what he accomplished. But...

I have had occasions where his set points were not where his map called for them to be. Coming up as a chainman, old party chiefs that I worked under used to comment: "with Brownie, it can be do as I say, not as I do."
It had been observed by more than a few surveyors that due to his prolific lecture touring, there could be a resulting absence of direct supervision of the Brown & Hall survey crews. They claimed you could find the good and the bad with his surveys, and especially the good when he was in town to supervise the crews.

One of the more common problems involved whose discs were set. It is not uncommon to find a map signed by Brown and the discs marked by his partner, Albert Daniels and vice versa.

As with us all, we have good and bad. Speaking on behalf of private practitioners, one of the biggest challenges is keeping this all in order. That is a true skill.

:)

When I worked for State Parks, in our Survey Unit files I came across a thick file for a boundary lawsuit Parks had with an adjoiner in the 1960s. Brown testified for the private adjoiner and prevailed. It involved a north-south Section line in the Southern California desert.

This is from memory so some details may be misremembered: the problem involved a range line which was farther east than expected, a lot. The boundary dispute section line is supposed to be one mile west of the range line but is actually substantially more west. The north end of the Section line was a found monument. Dean Jennings (I think), who was a very good and also very prolific surveyor (back when Parks actually had two Southern California crews) double proportioned the south end of the section line which caused the section line to be quite a bit off of cardinal due to the position of the range line.

Brown apparently testified that the section line would've been run more cardinal so the error should be left where it was found and double proportion was not appropriate. I can't say I disagree with him. There is some correspondance between Jennings (pretty sure that is the right name) and Brown after Brown's client prevailed about marking the line per the Judgment.

Daniels, Brown & Hall (DBH) became Hall Engineering after Albert Daniels and Curt Brown retired. The office was in Old Town across from Caltrans. I worked for Hall Engineering in the early 80's as an apprentice chainman.
My Party Chief had worked at the company for many years. He had performed numerous surveys with Curt and knew him well When I asked him about Curt, he chuckled and said "Well, lets just say that Curt was a whole lot better at writing books than he was at surveying. A good author and writer, yes, a good (field) surveyor, well not so much"
Straight from the horse's (Chief) mouth.
Go figure.

Just an observation but I spent many years working exclusively in the field and witnessed some really good Party Chiefs at work. I’ve seen crews that operate like a well-oiled machine. A good surveyor in this culture pounded hubs at an astounding pace, set the gun up in no time flat, turned tight angles, slept with a shovel, sweated buckets in 90°-100° heat without slowing down, and calc’d up deflection angles and chords on the hood of the truck without missing a beat. He motivated his crew and got a lot of work out of them. Some were really, really good at what they did. When the “office guyâ€￾ showed up in the field, suffice it to say, he sometimes looked a little clunky compared to these guys with their daily fine-tuned operation. Often, the field guys had spent their entire careers as field guys, being somewhat clunky themselves when put in the office for a stretch. However, some of them relished the opportunity, discovering for the first time what the bigger picture of land surveying entailed. They then worked on becoming the “whole packageâ€￾ themselves, but up to that point, their assessment of their fellow surveyor was pretty much based on those field tasks. For what it’s worth…

Dave Ryan,
Humboldt County

My understanding is that at one time Curt Brown's business got so big with so many crews working, there were a few problems and lawsuits after which he decided to scale down the business to keep a better handle on things.

Even if there were a few problems with surveys performed by the firm he was a partner in, you cannot deny the fantastic body of work that he put out.

Over 40 years after he retired, his legacy lives on.


(previous thread where I posted the handout from his funeral in 1993)
http://clsaforum.californiasurveyors.or ... rtis+Brown

I shudder to think what so called "professional" Land Surveyors will be saying about me decades after my death after reading some of the above comments about such an esteemed and revered figure in our profession.

Since today is Halloween I will allow myself to entertain the notion that Mr. Brown could come back from the dead and reply to some of the comments made above. I am certain that such a prospect would prove to be entertaining for me and enlightening for some other "professionals" here.

If your legacy attracts similar comments decades after your death, you should be darn proud. I see nothing but respect and reverence in the comments. What do you see? I think he would be the first to admit that field surveying was not his strong point. He's not famous for how many hubs he could pound in a day