About that property line

My property is surrounded on three sides by a wildlife refuge. I don't know why the county didn't buy my land to complete the refuge, but they didn't, and the people who owned it didn't pay the taxes and now it's ended up as mine. My property line is the orange twine in this picture. You can see the corner marker and rebar in the ground in front of the gate. This gate was built on my property.

The county's put in a variety of improvements in the last two or three years. Gates to control access, trails, bridges over the ditches that were dug... unfortunately, most of the improvements they've made have been done on my land. That picture shows the situation at the southern access gate. My property line goes down the center of that road. The gate is mostly on my property. Not sure what I'm going to do about that; but I can't allow the continued use by the public; this is privately owned land, and I intend to use it as pasture, so I can't have random folks wandering around opening my gates and bothering the animals.

So around the perimeter i go, and I find this.

If you click on this picture you'll see a larger version. If you look closely you'll notice some orange baling twine. I'm using that to mark the edges of my property. This is my north property line, looking south. The county has constructed this bridge mostly on my property. It's a nice bridge. It's constructed of pressure treated 8x12 timbers and galvanized fittings and looks sturdy enough to drive a truck over. They've piled at least 100 yards of gravel fill here, on both sides, both to put the bridge on, and to provide a ramp up to either side.

The path that this bridge serves is entirely on my property as well. In fact, if you want to go from the north end of the park to the south, you can't do so without crossing my property. That's interesting. I'm guessing the county didn't survey their land when they bought it. In my book that's a BIG MISTAKE. You don't spend $30k building something like this when you might be forced to remove it, and compensate the landowner for the encroachment and damage. Bad county! bad!

I'm working on figuring out who's in charge of this land, and when I do they'll get a certified letter. Always nice to to do business with the county.

Well, maybe they'll only have to remove half the bridge.