Surveying is one of the few professions where practitioners truly leave their mark, both physically, with survey markers, as well as in recorded history. Sometimes this work is truly monumental, as is the case with Alice Cunningham Fletcher.

Fletcher was born into wealth – her father was a prominent New York attorney, and her mother came from a wealthy Bostonian family. Unfortunately, her father’s health was poor and the family moved to Havana, Cuba shortly before Fletcher was born in the hopes the climate there would improve his health. However, the climate change didn’t work, and her father passed away in 1939 when Fletcher was only a year old.

I’m a real history buff and I will use almost any excuse to dig into the past and learn something new. So guess what? Earlier this month we celebrated Columbus Day, which is increasingly being celebrated as Native American Day, which leads me to a related surveying question – How are Indian Trust Lands surveyed?