What we know
One of the Black Forest's sawmills of the 1880s and 1890s, run by Frank Agnew from about 1882 to 1902 (von Ahlefeldt, sawmill chronology, p. 113). Agnew had patented this land in 1872. Koch's p. 19 map, which redraws von Ahlefeldt's sawmill map on a section grid, puts the Agnew mill in Sec. 17, T11S R66W, about three and a half miles north-northeast of this point (S-0197, p. 19).
Where it was
Von Ahlefeldt's sawmill chronology: 'Frank Agnew, about 1882-1902, 5 miles S.E. of Monument' (S-0009, p. 113), and her sawmill map marks Agnew on the west side of the forest. Frank Agnew's 1872 patent (Agricultural Scrip, doc. 223) is the W1/2 NW1/4 and NE1/4 NW1/4 of Sec. 1 and the NE1/4 NE1/4 of Sec. 2, T12S R67W (GLO, S-0080, checked on the index by Claude), about four miles south-southeast of Monument; placed at the center of that land. That the mill stood on it is. Good to about half a mile.
Placed from a written description, such as a land section, a distance from a landmark or an old survey note.
Sources
- S-0009: Judy von Ahlefeldt, Thunder, Sun and Snow: The History of Colorado's Black Forest (Colorado Springs: Century One Press, a division of Graphic Services, Inc., 1979)
- S-0080: General Land Office land patents, Bureau of Land Management (glorecords.blm.gov)
- S-0197: Susan E. (Steppler) Koch, The Land Is In My Blood: The History of The Divide Country and Its Pioneers, complete with Driving Tour and Homestead Maps (self-published; copyright 2015, U.S. Copyright Office TXu 2-251-186; first printing 2008, second October 2015, this copy the third printing, fall 2018)
Sources are named in the text above. Numbers such as S-0080 refer to our source list. Most newspaper quotations were read in the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. Long quotations from recent books are shortened here.