California Surveyors Forums

Does anyone have any reference, oral history, or potential lead on learning the origin of this type of monument?

Nothing formal, but I have encountered old lead plugs with the LS number hand stamped into them.

Found buried rocks with lead plugs located at City Block Corners done 1880's (City of Mt Hebron)
so been used for a while. Very stable and available in the past for plumbing and roofs etc.

San Francisco stone monuments have lead and brass tacks in them, so the "lead" part of the equation goes back 100 years +. The "tag" part is probably the 64K question.

Original iron pipe monuments I find by surveyors prior to 1930s seem to be rarely tagged. Anything from the 1930s that has a number is something more custom made, like M. A. Elftmann, who did a lot of work in Hillsborough, who set beautiful 1-1/2" brass caps on 1" pipes with larger custom type stamping.

Once we get into the 1930s-40s I start seeing copper tags which tend to be thicker than todays tag. So a "lead and tag" type of monument I am guessing came after that at some time, but at least here I do not seem to see "set lead and tag" on a map until the 1950s or 1960s.

Again this is Bay Area stuff, so it is always interesting to hear of other areas, and what people find.

This mark was set by USC&GS in 1881. That's a copper bolt set in lead in a drill hole in the granite block.

I recovered mons on a dirt road in south Corona that were large concrete blocks with a lead and copper nail in them they were only down about 30 inches. I think they were from before the 1940s.

the WPA set a lot of lead and tacks during the depression as part of a corner perpetuation/jobs program

In the 1891 Land Surveying addition to California codes, boundary monuments were required and required to be tagged. Section 10.

http://www.californiacentralvalleysurve ... LS_Act.pdf

Along with Warren, I've read or heard nothing official as to the origins of lead & tacks, outside of the fact that surveyors have been using them as a method of monumentation for hundreds of years. I can only imagine that use of lead & tacks came out of necessity for an easily identifiable and easily constructed monument (or point), where it was difficult or impossible to set a traditional stake.

Unlike now where our trucks can carry battery operated hammer drills, jack hammers, and other digging equipment, along with a multitude of monument types, the surveyors we now follow were limited on space and resources. All that was needed to set a lead & tack anywhere was a hammer, a drill or chisel, tacks, lead ingots, and a small heat source, and they could all be carried in a fairly small bag. Not to mention, lead was relatively easy to obtain and work with. The lead & tacks did the job, and in many cases, have quite literally, withstood the test of time.

and a small heat source

No heat required, just tamp the lead in the hole and you're done. Lead wool makes it easy with any size hole, but lead rod is okay, too. If the rod is too​ fat to go in the hole you can slim it down with some light hammering, though that takes a bit longer.

Not required, but it was used. It's like sweating pipes; heat the lead (tin or copper too) and let it flow.

As far as origin,
I cant help but to think that some land owner "shot" his mark in the ground or something, for the surveyor to locate.
Better than shooting the surveyor I suppose ?

If this were a case, then tradition carried on with a drill hole and lead plug which seems to last a while.
John Wayne and Ben Johnson might be proud