Description: Last update: November 26, 2014.Input source: PDFs from the National Archives and the Kansas Historical Society.Scanned maps were converted from PDF format to a tiff format, which is suitable for manipulation with image processing and GIS software. Township maps were divided into categories based on the geometry of the mapped townships. Regularly shaped townships were identified for automated control-point derivation with a combination of Object Based Image Analysis (OBIA) software processing and MATLAB procedures. An OBIA ruleset was developed to identify the township corners that were then passed to the automated MATLAB procedures for section corner identification. Each identified section corner point was verified visually, and corrected if necessary, to ensure the accuracy of the automated procedures. This process yielded 49 control points per township tying each section corner in the maps to the corresponding geographic coordinates, which were extracted from the Kansas Geological Survey’s LEO Database. Customized Python coding was then used to georeference and clip the tiff maps. Irregularly shaped townships were processed manually with a combination of specialized MATLAB procedures and ArcGIS software.The forest boundary was digitized off the computer screen using the georeferenced maps.Funding provided by the Kansas Department of Wildlife , Parks and Tourism (KDWPT) and the Kansas GIS Policy Board.