Stockton Chiseled Cross Monument Preservation Project
Chiseled or scribed crosses or plusses have been set for several decades in many older parts of Stockton. These chiseled crosses mark the location of block corners, street right-of-way, and can be used to determine the location of parcels within the blocks. These crosses are often destroyed when the sidewalk on which they were set are destroyed during sidewalk repair or street improvement projects.
I'm currently working as a volunteer in harmony with the California Land Surveyor Association Central Valley Chapter's Monument Preservation Outreach Project to preserve as many of these chiseled cross monuments as possible. This volunteer project consists primarily of an effort to have the chiseled crosses are cataloged, photographed, and surveyed.
You can access information about the chiseled crosses that have been cataloged, photographed, and located as part of this volunteer project from this web page. For more frequent updates, please visit (and subscribe) to the Stockton Chiseled Crosses blog.
You can find the location of many Chas Widdows survey maps, which often show the location of chiseled cross monuments in Stockton, by using the filed survey map index for San Joaquin County that Redefined Horizons maintains.
GIS Data
All of the GIS data created as part of this project is released into the public domain. At this time, there are 5 GIS layers produced as part of this project. These layers are:- Chiseled Crosses: Contains point features representing chiseled crosses cataloged in the field. The locations of the crosses in these files is based on waypoint locations from recreation grade Garmin hand held GPS receivers, and is NOT survey grade. When survey grade locations are obtained for the cataloged crosses they will be published on a filed Record of Survey in San Joaquin County.
- Likely Destroyed Chiseled Crosses: Contains point features representing block corners where any existing crosses have likely been destroyed by construction of new sidwewalk or other street improvements.
- Waypoint Observations: Contains point features representing the waypoint observations collected in the field when chiseled crosses were cataloged and photographed.
- Data Collection Mission Search Areas: Contains polygon features representing parts of the City that have been searched for chiseled cross monuments.
We will be working to provide metadata for each of these layers. The metadata will be available from this web page.
Chiseled Cross Monument Datasheets and Photos
You can download photos of the chiseled crosses from the list of links below. Each link is to a zip file with photos of the crosses organized by street name. The photos are high-resolution, so the zip files will take a while to download.
Updates
2010-11-05 Update: I completed the cataloging and photographing of 5 chiseled crosses on West Rose Street, Lucerne Avenue, and Argonne Drive near Victory Park. You can download them from the 2010-11-05 Data Collection Mission web page.
2010-05-12 Update: I completed the cataloging and photographing of 14 chiseled cross monuments on West Fremont Street between Pershing Avenue and North Stockton Street. I should have information about those monuments online soon.