Acceptable margin of survey error

So today I read in full the 45th parallel Wikipedia article that I linked yesterday in my discussion of Roselawn Avenue and the True North. I must admit that what I read in the article seriously shook my confidence. Reproduced here is what the article says about the 45th parallel in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area:

"Farther west, the line roughly bisects the metropolitan area of Minneapolis-St. Paul. In St. Paul, Larpenteur (from French l'arpenteur, "the surveyor") Avenue runs along the 45th parallel from the city's eastern to western edge. The center line of east-west Broadway Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis was deliberately laid out by city planners to be coterminous to the 45th parallel (i.e., if you are standing in the middle of the street, you are literally standing on the parallel line)."

So Larpenteur, not Roselawn? I don't think so, I think this is one of those instances that they keep warning us about when the information on that website is just plain Wiki-wrong.

I posted this photo in April 2007 of a bronze marker in a boulder near the corner of Roselawn and Cleveland. At the time I asked Judy, the surveyor at work, about the monument (it is worth noting that monument is surveyor talk). Judy told me that as a member of the Capitol Area Land Surveyors Association she participated in the placement of that plaque. It was she who told me that ROSELAWN is laid out on the 45th parallel. When I asked about the fact that the plaque (non-surveyor talk) is located a least a couple of dozen yards north of the intersection of Roselawn and Cleveland, she replied that the location was, if I recall correctly, "within an acceptable margin of survey error of being correct."So what exactly is an acceptable margin of survey error? Larpenteur Avenue is over a half mile distant. I am not a surveyor but I doubt that a half mile is ever an acceptable margin of survey error.

As I rode my bicycle today I, as is usual while riding my bicycle, had plenty of time to ponder this issue (and most anything else my mind might wander to, I love my bicycle). It gradually occurred to me that I once drove my car back to Roseville from Robbinsdale traveling most of the distance on Broadway. I remembered finding of interest that Broadway, although it is not continuous, lined up, pretty much, with a street in Roseville, which I remember thinking was Roselawn. The more I thought about it, Larpenteur becomes East Hennepin when it crosses the city limits to Minneapolis and I was pretty sure Hennepin doesn't line up with Broadway.

When I got home I checked the map. Hennepin lines up with Plymouth. A half mile north Broadway lines up with ROSELAWN.

Clearly this wiki-article was written by someone from Hennepin County who is captivated by the idea that Larpenteur, which does, according to BabelFish, translate from the French as land surveyor, was given that name in recognition of some sort of survey point. The problem with this is that this street name is NOT related to any bit or arcane survey trivia. Larpenteur Avenue is named after August Larpenteur, one of the first settlers of Minnesota. Given his name, it seems quite likely that Larpenteur WAS of French origin and his family name may well have been derived from the profession of one of his ancestors, as is common. Larpenteur himself, however, was a merchant.

I rode this morning at about 10:30. It was a little cooler than I like, and quite a bit more windy. But morning is really nice, weekday mornings there just aren't very many other people out there. It was nice.