The First Surveyors of the area
John David and Oscar Sonnenkalb, two early Bingham County surveyors
7/9/20262 min read
When the intermountain West was opened up to settlement surveying jobs were easy to come by. Two early surveyors in Bingham County, John David and Oscar Sonnenkalb, mapped the area near McTucker and the Snake River—David surveying the eastern range in 1879 and Sonnenkalb the western range in 1888. David, a Wisconsite, fought for the Union in the Civil War at Bull Run before being wounded and captured at Gettysburg. He was held for eighteen months and when the war ended went to Oregon City with his father and brothers and then began surveying in Idaho. He did the Fort Hall Reservation survey in 1870.
Sonnenkalb was born in Germany and studied at Dresden. He served in the Prussian War before coming to the U.S. He had the contract to map 9 townships from Burley to American Falls in 1886. He would be a Bingham and Bannock County surveyor for some time, surveying sixty square miles of Reservation land in 1901—in May, he was working in three to five feet of snow near Mt. Putnam, with the Idaho Statesman reporting that he was sunburned "until he is almost as black as an Indian", only his brown goggles keeping him from going snowblind. He put his hat in the ring for a consular job in 1903, being introduced to the U.S. President by Idaho Senator Heyburn, but did not get the position. Apparently he kept his German accent, being quoted, when congratulated for making a killing on his mapping of the land for a new courthouse in Blackfoot, as saying "Oh, vell, dat ish nottings, expenses dake it all."
You can see the two surveyors' original surveys at https://glorecords.blm.gov/search/default.aspx Just punch in the proper Township (4 South) and Ranges (32 and 33), along with the State and County. You can even read their field notes if you're prone to tedium—every once in a while you might find something of interest. If you are curious about the first filers on land you live on or that your ancestors had, go to https://bingham-id.maps.arcgis.com/.../weba.../index.html... to locate the property in question, then use the appropriate Townships and Ranges to find the first homesteaders in the glorecords link listed above. Happy searching!
