Missouri GPS Data Project
My Quest: To have accurate boundary data available on a GPS receiver for public lands in Missouri, including U.S. National Forest, Missouri Conservation Areas, and Army Corps of Engineers land.
The Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri is made up of nine tracts of land. GIS data for the outer boundaries of this land is available from the USGS, and this is the basis for all of the freely available GPS and online map data. However, within those outer boundaries, only about half of the area is public land, the rest being privately owned. The best and most detailed GPS maps do not reflect this, and therefore it is not possible to navigate through MTNF by GPS and know whether you are on public land or tresspassing on private land.
As far as I have been able to learn, no one has digital boundary data for the actual public property within MTNF. Paper maps exist and are available for a nominal fee, but there is no way to import this onto a GPS device.
The Project
The way I see it, property deeds must exist for all of this land, and they must contain survey descriptions. Since the land is publicly owned, these deeds must be a matter of public record. Undoubtedly, this is all on paper. Nevertheless, they should contain highly precise data.
If I can get my hands on all of these records, then I can key it into a database. Theoretically, it should be possible to use that to calculate vector data for the boundaries. From there, I can generate map data.
This is a very ambitious project. I shouldn't have to do this.