Since 1838 when lots sold for $38 in "Slaughter County," it has been a refuge to many industrious individuals and industries. Opha and Joseph Kilgore were early engineers on the Underground Railroad helping slaves escape in the late 19th century. Once the iron railroad arrived in 1858, roads, bridges, and culverts began to stretch across Washington County, Iowa (renamed from Slaughter) to facilitate "prairie life". Today many of these structures are still used to support the population of 21,300 residents. Since this time land surveys, maps, and many other documents have been generated by professionals to record and account for their industry. Entire rooms of the Washington County Engineer's offices are used to store and retrieve these important, one-of-a-kind documents. Every year countless more plans, drawings, and records are added to the archives to support the county infrastructure of roads, buildings, culverts, signs, survey monuments, driveways, land corners, and bridges.

This article first appeared in the Jan/Feb 2006 edition of The American Surveyor Magazine - see the full article HERE or A 1.370Mb PDF of this article as it appeared in the magazine—complete with images—is available by clicking HERE