General Land Office (GLO) Plat Maps @ the Library
The Tulsa City-County Library Research Center at the Central Library houses in its map collection several sets of GLO Plat maps. These maps are hand-drawn and at their most detailed include trees, lakes, rivers, railroads, houses and fields of different types. They are arranged by township, range and section and are mainly used by surveyors and researchers.
Background | TCCL
Collection | Using the Indexes
Oklahoma Department of Libraries Collection
Background
Public land surveys were placed under the direction of the principal clerk
of surveys in the General Land Office (GLO) on 4 July 1836. The GLO
continued to function for more than a century, until it was replaced by
the Bureau of Land Management which was established on 16 July 1946.*
The tangible products of a public land survey are the field notes and the plat. The plat is the drawing that represents the lines surveyed, i.e. section boundary lines, subdivision lines of sections, lines of segregation such as mineral or other claim boundaries, etc. Many township plats are not strictly plats since they often include topographic and other mappable features.
Field notes provide a written description of the physical features of the area surveyed as well as a record of measurements and monuments.
GLO records for Oklahoma date back to 25 July 1870 when the first survey crews began work on lands in the Chickasaw Indian Nation near old Fort Arbuckle in what is now Murray County. These records are the original descriptions of the lands surveyed and do not show any personal ownership of land.
TCCL Collection
The Tulsa City-County Library collection, consisting only of the plats,
was donated to the library by Amerada Hess and the Carter Oil Company. The
set of GLO Plats covers most of Oklahoma plus portions of some surrounding
states.
Using the Indexes
To locate a specific map, you must know the township and range of the area
in question. The cell in which the township and range meet provides the
map number. If the cell is highlighted in yellow the library has the map.
Indexes to the maps are available online and at the Research Center.
Oklahoma Late 1800's
and early 1900's - original federal land surveys
Arkansas Mid-1800's
Kansas Mid-1800's
Missouri Mid-1800's
Oklahoma Department of Libraries Collection
A complete set of the Oklahoma plats and the Surveyors'
Field Notes is available through the Land
Records Service in the Oklahoma Department of Libraries' Archives
Division in Oklahoma City.
Duplicates of the maps can be requested at $1.50 per paper copy or a whole township and range on microfiche at 50 cents a fiche - the customer must provide the township, range and section numbers they need when they submit their request. Fax requests to (405) 522-3583.
* Thompson, Morris M., Maps for America. I19.2:M32/12/897-979, p. 11.
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