Historic Right of Way Search

Historic Right-Of-Way Document Search - Background

The original purpose of the road records contained in this application was to document dedications, vacations, alterations, etc. of roads in Johnson County. In addition to these road documents were bridge and benefit district records.  Ranging in date from approximately 1850 to 1949, these documents are essential for anyone doing right-of-way research.

The road records consisted of two theoretically parallel sets of records:
1) The Road Record Books were the official volumes kept by the County Clerk in much the same way as deed and mortgage books. They were essentially bound blank forms filled in with appropriate data from road dedication actions.
2) The Road Packets were considered the working files. They contained all the original paperwork.
It is common for there to be only one of the two records for a road action. Whether that is because of lost or unaccounted for records it is not known. Only documents for section line roads have been tied to the map. As of 8/1/2014, links to other documents (non-section line roads) are searchable on the Search by Attributes screen.

Years later the Section Township Range index maps were created to help organize and make sense of these documents.

The original records were hand-written using various types and colors of ink. To properly pick up the variations in contrast caused by the ink and the color changes in the paper from aging, the records were scanned as black and white and as grayscale. The B/W images are useable the majority of the time but some details can only be seen in the grayscale images.