[OHM] evolving road classifications & OHM

[Nita S.]

This is going to be a bit of stream of consciousness, but here goes.

OHM stands for Open Historic Maps. If at all possible, we need to convey
both an accurate description combined with provenance. To illustrate what I
mean here is to talk about the road I live on, and how it came to be what
it is today. To fill in the blanks, I turn to (no surprise) historical maps.

The earliest map that I can turn to is the original section/range survey
map (T10S/R14E from the Florida baseline). This map was drawn in Fall 1847,
based upon a survey done in May 1847. The dividing line between Sec 9 and
Sec 10, is the where (the road I live on now) was first drawn. At that
point in time, it was an invisible line, between two corners.

This area of Floriday was homsteaded mostly between 1900 and 1905. The new
arrivals would likely have needed a way to get around, and may have cleared
the boundary lines, but I doubt there was much here other than a path for
horses and wagons.

The next historical reference point I have, is a 1936 court map produced by
the Florida DOT. The  legend for that map suggests 'primitive road'. SInce
early motorized transport was coming into more common presence, I would
think it was two ruts in the sand, more or less along the section dividing
line. Only the past major roads on the 1936 map have numbers.

At some point in time (likely post WW-II) the State of Florida took
easement, assigned road numbers, and paved this road. To this day, there
are markers along all these rural roads that say 'HWY R/W'. These were
erected by the DOT when the easement was taken.

Somewhere during the 1960s or 1970s, the state turned over maintainence of
all but the most major roads to the counties. At that time, SR-341 became
CR-341.

In the ~30 odd years that I have owned this property, I've seen the road
resurfaced twice, and widened a few feet as of the last resurface. At
certain points along this road, and nearby roads, are railroad spikes,
placed there by the early surveyors for reference marks. Every time they
resurface, the next surveyor has to cut a little square hole to expose the
spike.

All of the above, is the provenance of this road. How much of it is useful
(and should be commuted to OHM) is what needs to be thought out.

Nita Rae (as always, your obedient servant)

On Mon, Dec 30, 2019 at 12:24 PM Richard Welty <rwelty at averillpark.net>
wrote:

> [i previously posted this over in slack; not a lot of OHM activity
> over there so i'm reposting it here]
>
> i'm currently entering the route of the Long Island Motor Parkway
> into OHM, both for its historic interest as an early improved roadway
> (built 1908, operated as the LIMP until 1938) and because the first
> 3 years of operation included the Vanderbilt Cup Races which are
> important to Ghost Tracks.
>
> the LIMP brings up something i’d  not considered before - adapting the
> OSM highway tagging system for historic mapping. for 1908, the LIMP was
> an advanced road - all concrete, limited number of access points, wider
> than most. because of that, i’ve temporarily tagged what i’ve entered as
> trunk. but by the end of its life as a standalone entity it was
> obsolete, and NYS declined to add it to the state parkway system because
> it was so far behind the new roads that Robert Moses was building. at
> best in 1938 it was secondary. the longest existing piece today is
> a tertiary county route. so what do we want to do?
>
> richard
> --
> rwelty at averillpark.net
>  Averill Park Networking - GIS & IT Consulting
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