18-3-704. Establishment of lost corners.

(a) Whenever the location of any monument which marks the corner of any tract or tracts of land is in dispute between the owners of the adjoining lands, the monument shall be established as follows:

(i) The county surveyor of the county in which the corner is located or any registered land surveyor employed by one of the landowners shall immediately give notice in writing to all parties interested in the establishment of the corner, giving at least thirty (30) days notice and naming a day when he will make the necessary surveys to establish or restore the corner. If written notice cannot be made upon the owners or their agents because of nonresidence, then the notice shall be published once each week for four (4) consecutive weeks in a newspaper published in the county, or if there is no newspaper published in the county then in a newspaper of general circulation published nearest such county;

(ii) After the proper notice has been given the county surveyor or land surveyor shall on the day named in the notice proceed to reestablish or restore the corner after having determined by careful surveys and investigations that the original corner cannot be recovered or identified. He shall proceed in accordance with the surveying rules contained in the circular "Restoration of lost or obliterated corners" and the "manual of instructions for the survey of public lands", issued by the general land office of the United States government. He shall firmly plant a suitable monument at the corner point or points so determined. He shall mark the same for the proper sections or tracts to which they refer and shall add a personal mark so the origin of the monument can be traced. He shall accurately take and note courses and distances referred to in the true meridian, and from the reestablished or restored points he shall record the bearing to one or more prominent objects of a permanent nature if any are in the vicinity;

(iii) He shall make a map or plat of the survey and record a copy of it together with a copy of the field notes, applications for survey, notice to and names of the interested parties and all other pertinent papers in the office of the county surveyor and county clerk in the county in which the land is located. He shall file a copy of the same papers in the public survey office, department of the interior, Cheyenne, Wyoming. The monument or monuments reestablished or restored shall be held to mark the original corner or corners and shall have the legal force and effect as stated in the original record of the survey;

(iv) Any registered land surveyor rendering service under this section is entitled to fees and other incident expense to be collected equally from all interested parties.