Discovered an error from 1883
Was studying the plat of an addition to a nearby town. This was “Third Addition to………” and dated 1883. The streets were all extensions of streets in the original plat of the town. One street was identified as Gandy Street. That was correct in 1883 but today it is Grand Street and has been since about 1890. That was fine. The cross streets shown are 11th through 15th. Oopsy daisy!!! They were the extensions of 10th through 14th Streets in the original plat of the town. There is no correction noted on the plat in any form to alert the user of the plat to the fact those streets are all mislabeled.
Recently I was disappointed to learn that the staff in the mapping department of the County Appraiser’s office in my home county had finally discovered a problem in two blocks of a small addition to a different nearby town. That plat is from the 1890’s and contains four blocks total. All blocks have 24 lots being 25 feet east-west by 140 feet north-south. An alley divides the blocks into a north half and a south half. Lot 1 is in the northwest corner. Lot 12 is in the northeast corner. Lot 13 is in the southwest corner and Lot 24 is in the southeast corner. The problem is that the developer forgot the order of the lot arrangement when he began selling off lots in the south half of the block. In his mind the lot numbers ran with 13 in the southeast and 24 in the southwest. Therefore, when he gave a deed for Lots 23 and 24 he intended to convey what was platted as Lots 14 and 13. All lots in the south half of those two blocks have been deeded incorrectly for about 125 years. My question to the mapping staff was why were they were so unobservant all these years. Suddenly, they think they have to do something like make everybody change their deeds. That is not going to happen, for a long list of reasons.
While they were ranting about their discovery of this grievous problem I asked if they were going to force other similar problems to be “corrected” as well. I offered up a tiny subdivision in the largest town in the county that consists of six lots, I think. According to the plat Lot 1 is the easternmost lot and Lot 6 is the westernmost. The same error as above happened there. The occupant of what is platted as Lot 1 has a deed to Lot 6. All deeds are based on the numbering being reversed. It has been that way since the first lot was sold. If there had been an odd number of lots the lot in the center would be correct by accident. The mappers had never discovered this, either.
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