Collection 2512 - General Land Office Montana Plat Map Collection, 1869-1948

Creator: United States. General Land Office

Provenance Note: Positive photocopies of original Montana township plat maps created by the United States General Land Office were dontated to Montana State University in 2007 by the Tulsa City-County Library, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Historical Note: In 1812, Congress, with the Act of April 25, 2 Stat. 716, created the General Land Office (GLO) and placed it under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department. The Land Ordinance of 1785 mandated that surveyors use a rectangular system whereby the land was partitioned into township and range, with 36 parcels per township, each 1 square mile or 640 acres. Each township itself is 6 miles square and based on a series of principal meridians and baselines running across the land. In Montana Territory, Surveyor General Henry D. Washburn's term of office saw the first efforts to survey the land in 1869. These original surveys continued throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, and many townships were surveyed either partially or in whole more than once as the need arose to show later settlement and land distribution.

Content Description Note: The photocopied township plats in this collection represent two selections of grids in the present day counties of Gallatin, Madison, Broadwater, and Jefferson. The largest group of the plat maps show townships stradling the intersection of the Prime Meridian and baseline, and the second represents a selction of 20 townships located entirely southwest of those intersecting lines. The maps had originally been given numbers which conformed to a state map showing each township numbered from 1 through 2822 for all grids in Montana east of the Prime Meridian, and 2825 through 3753 west of the Prime Meridian. This numbering system is not currently used by the U. S. Interior department online access tool for GLO plat maps and can only be used to identify the desired township by referring to a copy of the state index map. The present arrangment sorts the maps numerically according to township and range number, starting with township 3 north and continuing to township 14 south. The maps in each folder are identified by the original state map numbers followed by the township and range numbers. The number appearing in parentheses separating the sequential state index map and township/range numbers is the number of individual sheets for that particular grid, usually representing the original and subsequent surveys of the township, ranging in dates from 1869 to 1948. Folder 1 also contains a small copy of the state index map.

NEW!: A complete selection of GLO plat surveys is available for browsing on the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management website. For access click here.

Contents

Box 1

Folder 1. Township 3 North

3434 (3) T3N R2W

3433 (1) T3N R1W

2102 (2) T3N R1E

2101 (2) T3N R2E

2100 (2) T3N R3E

2099 (2) T3N R4E

2098 (4) T3N R5E

2097 (3) T3N R6E

Folder 2. Township 2 North

3478 (2) T2N R2W

3479 (2) T2N R1W

2103 (2) T2N R1E

2104 (3) T2N R2E

2105 (1) T2N R3E

2106 (2) T2N R4E

2107 (3) T2N R5E

2108 (1) T2N R6E

Folder 3. Township 1 North

3481 (6) T1N R2W

3480 (2) T1N R1W

2226 (1) T1N R1E

2225 (1) T1N R2E

2224 (1) T1N R3E

2223 (1) T1N R4E

2222 (1) T1N R5E

2221 (5) T1N R6E

Folder 4. Township 1 South

3526 (2) T1S R2W

3527 (5) T1S R1W

2227 (1) T1S R1E

2228 (1) T1S R2E

2229 (1) T1S R3E

2230 (1) T1S R4E

2231 (1) T1S R5E

2232 (3) T1S R6E

Folder 5. Township 2 South

3529 (7) T2S R2W

3528 (1) T2S R1W

2350 (1) T2S R1E

2349 (3) T2S R2E

2348 (1) T2S R3E

2347 (1) T2S R4E

2346 (1) T2S R5E

2345 (2) T2S R6E

Folder 6. Township 3 South

3573 (4) T3S R2W

3574 (15) T3S R1W

2351 (12) T3S R1E

2352 (2) T3S R2E

2353 (1) T3S R3E

2355 (4) T3S R5E

2356 (3) T3S R6E

Folder 7. Township 4 South

3576 (7) T4S R2W

3575 (5) T4S R1W

2475 (1) T4S R1E

2474 (2) T4S R2E

2473 (1) T4S R3E

2472 (3) T4S R4E

2471 (2) T4S R5E

Folder 8. Township 7 South

3636 (3) T7S R7W

3637 (2) T7S R6W

3638 (1) T7S R5W

3639 (2) T7S R4W

Folder 9. Township 8 South

3649 (2) T8S R7W

3648 (1) T8S R6W

3647 (1) T8S R5W

3646 (3) T8S R4W

Folder 10. Township 9 South

3667 (2) T9S R7W

3668 (1) T9S R6W

3669 (1) T9S R5W

3670 (2) T9S R4W

Folder 11. Township 10 South

3680 (2) T10S R7W

3679 (1) T10S R6W

3678 (2) T10S R5W

3677 (2) T10S R4W

Folder 12. Township 11 South

3697 (1) T11S R7W

3698 (1) T11S R6W

3699 (2) T11S R5W

3700 (1) T11S R4W

Folder 13. Township 12 South

3710 (1) T12S R7W

3709 (1) T12S R6W

3708 (1) T12S R5W

3707 (1) T12S R4W

Updated: 5/16/11