Hattesohl & Associates Land Surveying, LLC

05/07/2026

03/17/2026

In the Fall of 1850 this large cast iron monument was placed firmly in the ground at the 90th mile point East of John Sullivan's "Old Northwest corner" to the state of Missouri.

In the 1848 term the Supreme Court appointed Henry B. Hendershott and Joseph C. Brown as the commissioners to survey and mark the boundary line of Missouri and Iowa, before the work would commence, Brown died and thus eventually in the 1849 term his replacement was chosen to be William G. Minor. And finally in 1850 the retracement and remarking of the state line was to take place. Along with local, well known surveyors; William Dewey (IA) and Robert Walker (MO), the survey team set out to locate the first survey monuments set by John Sullivan in 1816 and then mark permanently every 10 miles along the line large cast iron monuments. These are all solid cast iron and each weigh about 600lbs! (Like the one shown in the diagram). These monuments are still holding firm the border between Missouri and Iowa. Working in Northern Missouri for over 2 decades, we've been fortunate to find many of these historical relics.

02/27/2026

Accurate boundary surveying begins and ends with retracing the work of those surveyors from long past. It isn't easy but it is extremely rewarding to locate those monuments they left behind, and in some cases uncover them for the first time since they were set. It is in those moments we know we are following in their footsteps.

01/28/2026

Give Tyler & Graphics King’s a call!

10/30/2025

A short 128 years ago, on October 19, 1897, the county surveyor, Chris W. Reeves laid out the boundary between to landowners. Today we had the pleasure of searching for and successfully recovering two of the cornerstones set in the ground by him and his sworn chainmen. It may surprise most people today that their property boundaries rely on monuments like these set out by people from so long ago. For a Land Surveyor there is no better feeling then finding one of these stones and placing your hand on the chiseled X, its like reaching back in time and shaking hands with that surveyor over a century past. We will document these finds with both the County as well as in the state repository in the hopes that the next generation can locate and use these markers.

In two of the pictures below you can see the survey plat and notes by Reeves in 1897. The corner on the aerial photo marked A was a 30"x10"x3" stone with an X cut in the top. The corner marked B was actually found by Reeves that October day, he states that he measured from both witness trees and found the stone at the proper place. He notated it as being 17"x10"x9" with an X on top. Both of these stones were carefully lifted from the ground where they were found and they matched those dimensions. The 30" long stone had fallen on its side and was reset firmly in the ground as pictured.

08/01/2025

We want to take a moment to recognize Sean Smith as one of the newest Professional Land Surveyors in the state of Missouri! Sean recently took the Missouri State Specific tests which is last needed to gain your PLS! Congratulations Sean!

06/27/2025

As the temperatures soar up into the 90's our team continues to push through the heat, thorns and ticks in order to complete accurate property boundary surveys for our clients.

06/15/2025

This summer our team welcomes a future Mizzou attendee, and Princeton high school graduate, Cooper Boxley, into the field crew. Cooper plans on attending Mizzou as an Engineering student with the intention of becoming a Professional Civil Engineer, and while Land Surveying and Engineering have distinct differences they share key attributes in shaping the infrastructure we see, live and work in everyday.

Last Thursday Cooper was working alongside our field crew while on a boundary survey on the north side of Unionville when they successfully recovered a cornerstone placed by the county surveyor, P. W. Porter on June 5th, 1914. The stone was a "Loststone 11" tall by 8" wide by 5" thick" as noted by Porter in his survey notes (pictured) The stone was completely buried, and invisable to the eye, when the team probed the earth around the old fence post, then subsequently exposed the stone it matched the recorded dimensions exactly, thus confirming its identity as the cornerstone set by Porter. No other surveyor in the records of the county from 1914 until us has found this stone. Being a tradition here at Hattesohl & Associates, Cooper knelt down for a photo with this unknown piece of history and his first found record cornerstone.

03/18/2025

Successfull boundary surveying, or retracement, starts with research through the recorded survey history filed and kept in every county Recorders office. Then, every attempt at locating the monuments set out by the previous surveyors must be made. Locating these monuments allows us to 'follow in the footsteps' of our former surveyors, who themselves were following the original government surveyors (GLO surveyors of the 1830's to 1850's). This repeated principal of following the ones before us is at the core of boundary surveying.

In rural Mercer county today we recovered some of those long lost survey monuments. Below is a copy of one of the survey records from 1911 as well as some of the monuments found.

03/16/2025

Witness tree for Mile Post 49 East of the original Northwest corner of Missouri, 13 months in time. Marking trees as witnesses to set survey markers has been a standard practice and tradition since the 1800's when the GLO surveyors mapped this country. This tree resides just on the other side of the MO-IA line into Iowa and will point to the survey monument for future generations to come.