Description
Explore how America’s vast western lands were organized and, less delicately, how they were converted into property. In other words, how did we go from thinking about land to be used—to land to be owned? While this talk doesn’t focus on the human strife that accompanied this process, it does trace the evolution of how land was measured and eventually put to use, and how this continues to shape many of our cities and states today.
Dirk Van Hart spent 25 years as a petroleum geologist in Oklahoma, Texas, Central and South America, and Italy, plus 12 years as a geologist in New Mexico. Since semi-retirement in 2003 he has published three books and given more than 25 talks at Oasis.