GEST STANDARDS

WHY CINCINNATI BLOCKS ARE TOO LONG

     Contained in 12 big volumes of the surveys and field notes of Joseph Gest, Cincinnati City Surveyor and engineer from 1819-1844, is a rich treasury of early Hamilton County history.

These historic volumes are a great mine of original data covering nearly all parts of the city and county.

     But it was Gest who was, unwittingly, responsible for the fact that Cincinnati’s downtown blocks are longer than what is considered American standard.

     His surveyor’s chain was manufactured here on the measurements provided by a two-foot brass rule he imported especially from England. The rule makers, to allow for wear at the ends, made the rule a thirty-second of an inch longer then the specified two feet. Gest didn’t know it, nor did anyone else until years later. But the result was that errors of inches crept into his surveying over appreciable distances.

     To this day, surveyors hereabouts have to compensate for the “Gest variation”

     Gest was born at Sadsbury, Pa., in 1775 and died in Cincinnati at 88 in 1863. As Surveyor and Engineer , he early became an authority on discovering, re-establishing and verifying lost land lines. In 1817 he made a trip on horseback to the Wabash River. Next year he and his wife and infant daughter came to Cincinnati and he quickly became a leading surveyor. In 1819 he was chosen city surveyor and city civil engineer—a position he held until 1844 , when he retired because of failing sight.

     Gest was an outstanding civic leader. He was a pioneer in the formation of volunteer fire companies, a leader in the creation of Cincinnati’s public school system, and Ohio Mechanics Institute and promoter of the building of the old Miami & Erie Canal.

Substance taken from an article by Charles Ludwig which appeared in the Cincinnati Times Star on Tuesday March 17, 1953.