Talk:List of Minnesota state parks

Upper Sioux Agency status
Reverted 12 May 2023 edits: the edits moving Upper Sioux Agency into the "former parks" table implies the land transfer has already occurred, but per the law passed (line 226.27, per MN.gov) transfer won't occur until after 15 January 2024. Because the transfer has not occurred, it cannot be said to be a "former park", and the 12 May edits were incorrect. Lilwinwin (talk) 01:27, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

count
I fixed the count to 72 which is the number listed here and on the DNR page. -Ravedave 05:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I figured it out. Forestville/Mystery Cave is counted as two parks but treated as one... Confusing -Ravedave 04:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Red river state park
Apparently the park was created in 1997  This totally contradicts news reports on the new park saying that it would be the "first park in 30 years". Anyone have anything else about red river that would say it started any other time? -Ravedave 04:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hrm. Semantics. Apparently it is a "State recreation area" along with all the other recent parks. -Ravedave 04:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Links v Refs
Right now each row has a link to the respective DNR page, which is useful to readers, but is also the source for the facts (unless otherwise noted). Should these links be converted to refs instead, and then the use would click the ref, then the link? -Ravedave 04:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I think people reviewing it as an FL candidate would object to the use of so many external links. Changing them all to refs would head off that problem.--Appraiser 14:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

History
I removed the history section until sources could be provided diff. -Ravedave 05:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Parks counting problems
I went through the USGS named places database for MN and added their coordinates. Found two problems. A few parks were not in the USGS list. And some in USGS list were not in this article. (SEWilco 04:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC))
 * The Meyer book has lots of information on former parks. I added a table to the article listing the ones below.  How much information do we want there?  There are lots more former parks.  Do we want to add acreage, county, body of water, or more detail about why they were disbanded? What about renamed state parks, like Baptism River/Tettegouche and O.L. Kipp/Great River Bluffs?  McGhiever 14:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * We need don't need much detail on former parks - they were/are not important enough. Unless your source gives reasons, it may be difficult to find why they were given up.  There have been recent proposals to decommission some of the smaller ones for budgetary reasons; presumably that is what happened in the past as well.  As for the renamed parks, there should be redirects created (as I did recently for Baptism River)-- at least if the former name is still within living memory, or still appears in books and maps.  Perhaps the table could give the former name as an fka in the remarks section for the entry under the current name.  Kablammo 15:16, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * 44.55135°N, -95.12972°W - Alexander Ramsey State Park transferred to Redwood Falls, 1957 c 230, now "Ramsey Park"
 * 47.3402°N, -91.20377°W - now tettegouche - http://bethgauper.com/articles/2007_tettegouche.html
 * 48.5155°N, -93.70961°W - list as a legal state park.. wtf? even smaller than Franz Jevne State Park, and right down the road. Maybe it's admin-ed as the same park. AH HA! - it's actually Grand Mound State Historic Site.
 * 47.79378°N, -90.15427°W - Unable to find any info laws or google - Its on google maps. Right next to judge magney park
 * This is actually Kodonce River State Wayside. It's mislabelled on Google Maps.  McGhiever 12:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 44.06191°N, -93.23549°W - transferred to owatonna - http://www.ci.owatonna.mn.us/services/parks/park-kaplan.php 1963
 * 47.17579°N, -95.60448°W - Unable to find any info laws or google - on google maps, right near itasca
 * A former park delisted in 1989. McGhiever 12:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 44.16774°N, -92.54018°W - to Olmsted County pursuant to Laws 1965 c 810 s 9
 * 47.73162°N, -94.58553°W - Unable to find any info laws or google - google maps says "Blackduck golf course"
 * Now a city park.
 * 44.30857°N, -94.72748°W - Unable to find any info laws or google - google maps says to no park, but there is a small park and a golf course near by.
 * Now a city park.


 * Apparently some were transferred to cities, others may have been renamed,, others I think have the name "State park" but realyl aren't state parks. I also found the laws that dictate what the parks/recreation areas are . -Ravedave 04:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * HAh also if you follow the link from the KML template, one of the parks shows up in europe :^) -Ravedave 04:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * And if you looked at the table you saw one park had the same coordinate twice. (SEWilco 05:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC))

Parks, recreation areas, waysides and historic areas
What should be listed here? Are they all "parks"? Should recreation areas be broken out? -Ravedave 04:57, 23 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The difference between state parks and state recreation areas seems to be nebulous. As far as I can tell, in most cases it's a matter of political expediency and produces no difference in the management of the unit.  Plus, since there's only 5 rec areas, breaking them out wouldn't produce a page with much substance.  I vote for leaving them in.  As for the state waysides, I get the strong impression from Meyer's book that these are parcels acquired early on that the DNR's never really known what to do with.  Finding information on them is really tough; it's hard to say for sure which ones are even still being managed by the state.  It would be nice to have them listed because they are managed by the same entity, but on the other hand they're probably never going to get individual articles.  Without much information available, the waysides may just hamper the list's chances of being a featured article.  As for state historic areas, are there any still that are managed by the Department of Natural Resources?  I think the same would hold true for them as for the waysides.  McGhiever 23:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I was thinking of just making a separate table on this page with the rec areas in it. But you make a good point that they are basically the same thing, so I'll keep them in the table so people can sort and directly compare them. For the waysides I was thinking maybe just a bulleted list, but it might be hard to compile. The historic site mentioned above, "Grand Mound State Historic Site" is apparently run by the MNHS not the DNR  and is actually closed. -Ravedave 23:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Fact checking
I believe that before FLC this article should be checked for accuracy. So here is a work list, broken out in groups of 7 (more or less since there are 72). What to do: 1) Claim a group by putting your name 2) Check acreage, date, and remarks against the DNR pages for the park or provided references. 3) Check park location. 4) If you like copy edit the "remarks" 5) All redlinks will be removed before listing at FLC, so if you want to create an article go for it.


 * 1) Afton State Park - Blue Mounds State Park
 * Thanks, Dave. I'll take the first section. Jonathunder 04:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Buffalo River State Park - Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area
 * 2) Father Hennepin State Park - Frontenac State Park
 * 3) Garden Island State Recreation Area - Great River Bluffs State Park
 * 4) Hayes Lake State Park - Judge C. R. Magney State Park
 * 5) Kilen Woods State Park - Lake Maria State Park
 * 6) Lake Shetek State Park - Monson Lake State Park
 * 7) Moose Lake State Park - Saint Croix State Park
 * 8) Sakatah Lake State Park - Split Rock Creek State Park
 * 9) Split Rock Lighthouse State Park - Zippel Bay State Park
 * I picked up the Minnesota State Parks Guide 2007-2008 this weekend and will use it to update all the parks' acreage. I wouldn't trust the websites for acreage; they don't seem to be updated consistently.  The numbers on a given park also vary from source to source, depending I think on whether statutory area or state-owned area is being counted (many parks still have private inholdings), and if any recent additions are being counted.  The guide brochure will at least presumably be consistent on which measurement it uses (probably statutory), and is the most recent official information.  McGhiever 16:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

FYI Some parks aren't on google/yahoo etc maps, these are the ones I had to use park maps to locate, if you find others please list them:
 * Big Bog State Recreation Area
 * Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area
 * Garden Island State Recreation Area
 * Hill-Annex Mine State Park

Thanks! -Ravedave 22:46, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Mcghiever has completed updating acreages for all parks. I have checked web sources in all numbered footnotes in references and compared against text; I have not checked print sources in numbered footnotes.  Kablammo 13:56, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Map
The dots on the map appear to be about 6 - 8 miles to the south and 2 or 3 miles to the east of their proper locations. Kablammo 15:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I have a csv with the coordinates at home, I'll see what I can do tonight soon. -Ravedave 15:49, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem has been noted on the Featured List page. I checked a dozen or so parks, including Itasca, North Shore parks, and SE Minn parks; all appear on the map further south of their actual locations. Kablammo (talk) 17:55, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Accuracy is to be desired, but some movement might be done by a map maker who is balancing the needs of the map, such as making labels fit. If the map has few reference points then the map won't be used for navigation and is an illustration with more artistic license than would a road map.  -- SEWilco (talk) 06:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * All dots have been checked and moved where appropriate. Kablammo (talk) 02:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well cartographed. -- SEWilco (talk) 04:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to break this to you guys, but the difference appears to be firefox vs ie thing. The dots are hosed in firefox now, with several parks in Superior and Canada. List_of_Pennsylvania_state_parks has the same issue. I guess thats why it didn't bother me before, some parks were off, but barely (in fx). Now I see what you guys were seeing. IE has larger market share so I guess this is fine for now. I am going to see about finding someone well versed in CSS. -Ravedave (talk) 05:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Wildlife management areas
Do Wildlife management areas merit being mentioned here? There are 1,380 public wildlife areas with 1.2 million acres of habitat. http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/wmas/index.html -Ravedave (talk) 05:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)


 * They're not part of the state park system, so a passing mention at most is all I personally think they would merit within this article. They could be talked about more in depth in the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources article.  Same with the Scientific and Natural Areas.  The state park system is expressly the state parks, state recreation areas, and state waysides, so my feeling is that this article should stay focused on them.  McGhiever (talk) 06:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's what I was looking for. I'll try and work in a mention at the DNR article. -Ravedave (talk) 15:50, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Which infobox template?
There are three different infobox templates being used in Minnesota state park articles. I hope we can pick one to use in every article. There's the Infobox: Protected area, an example of which is at Beaver Creek Valley State Park. There's a Geobox: Protected area template, such as at Wild River State Park. The former is more widespread, more compact, and has a line for visitation numbers, but the latter is more eyecatching and automates placement of the locator dot. On the other hand it doesn't seem as flexible about area (acres/km²). I'm not sure which is preferable.

Then there are several parks with resources on the National Register of Historic Places, which our history-buff editors have been great about marking with a NRHP template (see Charles A. Lindbergh State Park. These are nice but ultimately I wonder if articles on protected areas should have a Protected Area infobox, which applies to the entire contents of the article, rather than an infobox highlighting one aspect of the article. -McGhiever (talk) 18:06, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm one of those history buff editors who's been adding the NRHP infobox to National Register properties. Actually, I've also been adding Geobox protected area infoboxes to a few articles lately.  I'm less experienced with protected areas than I am with NRHP properties, and I've had information more easily available about National Register properties.  But I see your point and I agree that the National Register articles tend to point out certain aspects of a park, rather than the whole thing.  (Charles A. Lindbergh State Park is sort of a special case, though -- it's a National Historic Landmark for the house and its connection to the aviator, but the WPA-designed structures are on the National Register separately as an example of Depression-era rustic park architecture.)


 * Some time ago, I wrote some query tools that will create NRHP infoboxes based on the National Register Information System database. I've been looking into the IUCN World Database of Protected Areas, and I downloaded their database that they distribute with GIS data.  I found a way to query that database and generate the Geobox Protected Area infobox from that.  I've made that query available at this link.  Their database doesn't contain everything needed to fully populate the geobox, though -- in particular, it doesn't know anything about the state, county, or city in which a protected area is located.  You also have to leave off the designation, such as "State Park" or "National Wildlife Refuge", since that's in a separate field.  If you want to try it out, though, give it a shot.  By the way, the reason I'm using Geobox rather than Infobox protected area is because it is indeed easier to automate the placement of the locator dot.  I think the Geobox templates are also somewhat "newer" and maybe more standard, but don't quote me on that.  --Elkman (Elkspeak) 04:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Lake Vermilion
We need to add Lake Vermilion State Park to the list. Jonathunder (talk) 14:33, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
 * And greenleaf lake... - Ravedave (talk) 19:25, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 22:08, 29 April 2016 (UTC)