Talk:Silver Reef, Utah

Ghost town?
It's not quite correct to call Silver Reef a ghost town. The private land here has been subdivided, and Silver Reef is now part of (or adjacent to) Leeds, Utah. The old Wells Fargo office sits rather incongruously amid suburban homes. --Pete Tillman (talk) 01:24, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

A ghost town is a town that is a ghost of its former self. Whether it's part of Leeds or not, it's still a ghost of its former self. For example, Corinne has a few people in it, and it is considered to be a ghost town. Why? Because it used to have a lot more people. Silver Reef doesn't have the 2,000 people it used to have, which makes it a ghost, even if it is part of Leeds. --The Utahraptor (talk) 01:42, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * We shouldn't be involved in judging what is and isn't a ghost town. We go by reliable sources, and there are many many that call Silver Reef a ghost town. Ntsimp (talk) 04:55, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Good point. --The Utahraptor (talk) 15:47, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Further discussion
I thought I would bring this up again. I was looking at the abandonment date that is included in the infobox (1891), but looking at the Demographics section, there were residents in Silver Reef from 1875 (when it was established as "Rockpile") to the 1950s, when the Colbath's left, and the town was resettled in the '70s and '80s, and has seen a small boom in population since then. I know most sources call Silver Reef a ghost town, but since it has residents, a Census was taken in the town in 1990, and considering Silver Reef's Census data for 2000 (and possibly 2010) is probably included in the Census data for nearby Leeds, kind of makes me lean away from the "ghost town" label. At this point I see three possibilities:


 * 1) Leave the label as is; Silver Reef will still be labeled as a "ghost town", but the "abandoned" title in the infobox remains a problem. If we marked it as "1950s" there would still be the issue of the town having residents today.
 * 2) Change Silver Reef's label to "Unincorporated community". This is probably one of the best things to do, but since it's most likely considered by Washington County to be a subdivision of Leeds, I'm not sure if this label would be entirely accurate.
 * 3) Change Silver Reef's label to "Semi-ghost town". In some ways, this is somewhat better than the "Unincorporated community" label, but for some reason it just doesn't seem as encyclopedic as the other two options.

Any thoughts? The Utahraptor Talk/Contribs 02:48, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * What do the bulk of the sources call it? I'm not remotely qualified to to have an opinion on which should be used, but if its notability (or at least its "interestingness") stems from it being abandoned, "unincorporated community" doesn't really tell the reader why it's interesting—which is the point of the opening sentence. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   02:59, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Most sources call it a ghost town, but they do mention that the town has a few residents. In The Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns, Stephen Carr classifies Silver Reef as a "Class 6" ghost town, which, along with "Class 7" ghost towns, he considers semi-ghost towns. The Utahraptor Talk/Contribs 03:02, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Well if "semi ghost town" is a term used by a published expert in the field and not a Wikipedia-invented neologism, perhaps that might be the most accurate description? HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   03:05, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Has the Silver Reef townsite been annexed into the city of Leeds, or is it still unincorporated county land on the city's outskirts? Ntsimp (talk) 03:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * @ Ntsimp: Silver Reef's website mentions that the Wells Fargo Silver Reef Monument (which occupies much of the former business district of Silver Reef) is in Leeds, Utah. I'm assuming the rest of the town is considered a part of Leeds, as well. However, much of the former town hasn't been subdivided yet, and could be considered county land. There are parts of the old town (for example, the location of the Leeds Mill) that are BLM land.
 * @ HJ: If I re-labeled Silver Reef as a semi-ghost town, and provided a reference to Carr (and maybe a note explaining what his "Class 6" classification of Silver Reef means), would that be fine? The Utahraptor Talk/Contribs 12:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Silver Reef State Park
Do you think it's possible Silver Reef could be made into a state park? --BlackCowboy9 (talk) 03:55, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There were plans to make Silver Reef (at least part of it) into a state park years ago. I don't know what the State Legislature has done with the plans, but I think it's possible. --The Utahraptor (talk) 20:57, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

B-Class article
I honestly think Silver Reef is ready to be a B-Class article. I would like to direct you to the following article:

Bodie, California

It is rated B-Class even though it doesn't appear as good as Silver Reef. The Utahraptor (talk) 19:47, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The Bodie article's doing a lot better than this one. Check out WP:BCLASS; those are the criteria. This article still needs improvement in #1 (e.g., epodunk.com and ghosttowns.com are not reliable sources), and #2 (the History section is missing some important subtopics). And although it's not made explicit, I would say #5 means a suitable photo should go in the infobox, and we should take apart the image gallery. I understand this article has been essentially your creation, but don't take its assessment personally. I've said before that I've got a lot of good sources to use for this article, and I'll get around to doing that. Ntsimp (talk) 20:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, I understand now. The Utahraptor (talk) 22:21, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Remove tone tag?
Should the tag about bad tone be removed? I've done a lot of editing concerning tone on this article, and although I'm not done, I'm pretty close. The Utahraptor Talk 00:10, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree completely. Wow, your improvements have been top-notch! Not only did I remove the issues tag; I've re-assessed the article as B-Class. Very fine job. Ntsimp (talk) 03:52, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you! The Utahraptor  Talk 15:22, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Population of Silver Reef
I want to remove the section on population. Other than the cited population data, it looks like original research to me, which, as I understand, doesn't belong on wikipedia. But I thought I should talk about it before just doing it, despite wikipedia's policy of being bold. I guess there's a limit to how bold you can be. So, what do you think? Should we remove the table? Also, Silver Reef does have a few dozen current residents. Do you think we could do some research and figure out how many people Silver Reef has? And if so, shouldn't we make a demographics section? OldWestHistorian (talk) 12:52, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Anyone? If there is n't any opposition in the next couple days I'm going to remove it anyway. OldWestHistorian (talk) 16:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The section should probably be replaced by a USCensusPop table. I replaced the made-up 1880 population with the actual census figure, and cited both 1880 and 1890 to the census. The other figures seem a bit unlikely. Ntsimp (talk) 03:54, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * So what should we do about the other figures? I could do some research and try to find some reliable sources with population figures. Regarding the demographics section, see the very first topic on this talk page. Since Silver Reef is in close proximity to Leeds, the population of Silver Reef is probably included in the population of Leeds. So it would be difficult to get Census figures for Silver Reef. Not impossible, but difficult. I say just leave it as it is. No demographics section needed. The Utahraptor  Talk/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 19:26, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * According to Moffat's Population History of Western U.S. Cities and Towns, 1850-1990, the figures for Silver Reef are to the right (all census figures). As expected, they match the census figures that Ntsimp already sourced (and add 1990).


 * I generally like using this table, but if we do so, we will lose the two other sourced data points - the 1876 number in the table now, and the results of an 1884 local census included in Moffat showing 1500 people - as the template only takes census years. While the rest of the data is unsourced and suspect (population claims for these old towns have often been overly lofty in my experience), these two seem pretty decent. --  Transity  ( talk &bull;  contribs ) 22:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This brings up the demographics situation again. Seeing as how Silver Reef's 1990 population is higher than I thought it currently was, I'm starting to change my mind about a demographics section. But if we did that we'd have to change Silver Reef's label to an unincorporated community instead of a ghost town, and, for some reason, I'm leaning away from that label. Many sources don't call Silver Reef a community, but a ghost town. And a demographics section in a ghost town article would seem mighty strange, at least to me. Taking all this into account I'm not sure if we should include 1990's population in the article, and if we do, then the demographics section problem would just come up again. The Raptor  Let's talk/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 22:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Combined history section
I'm trying to prepare this article for a good article nomination, and I've been thinking about merging all of the subsections in the section "History" and making a large history section instead of having it split into subsections. Although there is a lot of information about Silver Reef's history, I don't think there's enough to split it into separate subsections. So I think we should combine all of them and make a large history section. Thoughts? The  Utahraptor My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions 20:23, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Anybody? The Utahraptor Talk to me/Contributions 00:09, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Since there was no opposition, I've done it. Feel free to undo it if you oppose but didn't speak up. The Utahraptor Talk to me/Contributions 14:28, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Something that should be included
Because Silver Reef was around at the time of the Edmunds Act, and since it was probably the only gentile city in southern Utah, polygamists hid here. I think this should be mentioned. OldWestHistorian (talk) 19:41, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think Carr's book talks about that a little bit. I'll look into it. The Utahraptor Talk to me/Contributions 13:18, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Lead section too long?
Does the lead section look like it needs to be trimmed? An article the size of this one should only have one or two paragraphs in the lead section, per WP:MOS. The Utahraptor Talk to me/Contributions 01:44, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Anybody going to respond? The Utahraptor Talk to me/Contributions 15:00, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

GAN
To ensure that credit to given where it is due, I'm co-nominating this article for WP:GAN with The Utahraptor, without whom this article would not exist. NielsenGW (talk) 19:41, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Wait, I don't think it's ready. Put it on hold, I still have a few things I need to do. The Utahraptor Talk/Contribs 23:41, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Go ahead and do what you need to do. WP:GAN has quite a backlog in the Places category and it could be awhile before a reviewer gets to it. Plus, nothing motivates better like an impending deadline. :) NielsenGW (talk) 23:46, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's a few things that I think need to be done:


 * Expand the "geology and geography" section
 * Give the article one last thorough copy edit
 * Write about the uranium mining that took place in the 1950s


 * There's probably a lot more that needs to get done, but that's what I can come up with off the top of my head. Nielsen, can you find anything on uranium mining in Silver Reef? I've got one source, but it only has one or two sentences on the uranium mining. The Utahraptor Talk/Contribs 23:52, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Although the GAN guidelines allow anyone to nominate an article, I wouldn't suggest nominating against the wishes of the chief contributor. It seems to me that such a move might create hard feeling and might be counterproductive. The Utahraptor requested a peer review of the article in September, and I reviewed it, hence my interest. The contributor tool shows here that The Utahraptor has made 261 edits, SMasters 139, and NielsenGW 53; thus it's clear who the main contributor has been. My advice here is that NielsenGW withdraw the nomination for the nonce and let The Utahraptor re-nominate when he is ready. I can only advise, not enforce, so you must do as you think best. Finetooth (talk) 22:49, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Citation problem
Hi. While reviewing the edits done recently by an IP on the citations, I noticed that cite #54 and 55 both have the same page numbers. While this is possible, it seems unlikely, and is worth checking out. Regards, --Ninja Dianna (Talk) 22:51, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
 * According to the most recent revision before the IP's edits, this same problem existed. I don't have the sources with me currently, but I'll check them out at a library as soon as possible. The Utahraptor Talk/Contribs 23:40, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks like the error happened with this, So I am going to go ahead and correct it. --Ninja Dianna (Talk) 19:50, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Inquest clarification
"An inquest held on both men in the saloon ...". Is the intention "An inquest on both men, held in the saloon, ..."? :)) --Stfg (talk) 16:31, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I've fixed it. The Utahraptor Talk/Contribs 03:20, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Date of abandonment
Although the infobox says that Silver Reef was abandoned in 1891, there were still people living there past that year. For instance, the proprietor of the Cosmopolitan Restaurant, Margaret Grambs, lived there until 1894, when she moved to Salt Lake City (I'll find the source that has this information). No sources ever state a specific date of abandonment, and even today, Silver Reef isn't abandoned. This does mean it's not technically a ghost town, but many sources call it a ghost town, despite it being populated.

Now, Dr. Stephen Carr, in The Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns, describes Silver Reef as a Class 6 ghost town, one that is "comprised of many old, abandoned buildings but with a few residents still living within." Carr goes on to say that ghost towns with a Class 6 and Class 7 classification are semi-ghost towns. Perhaps we should label Silver Reef not as a ghost town, but as a semi-ghost town, as Carr describes it. Perhaps we could also include a note explaining Carr's official classification of Silver Reef as a Class 6 semi-ghost town? Thoughts? The Utahraptor Talk/Contribs 20:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Population surge in Silver Reef
About a month ago, I visited Silver Reef again. It looks like there's a lot of home construction there; probably 150 to 200 people are living in town now, and that number is growing fast. What does this mean for Silver Reef? Should we call it a residential area or retain its traditional ghost town label? Thoughts? The Utahraptor Talk/Contribs 00:24, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The present article mainly focuses on the archaeological aspects of the site, but if it becomes an occupied town again, that might have to change. I'm not finding any source material online to add a section on the recent developments. Perhaps you can find some material in local newspapers next time you are in the area. -- Diannaa (talk) 01:51, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll see what I can find. Depending on how much information I can find, we could easily add something on this new development in the history section. Also, there's a new organization that oversees the ruins and the museum there. It's called the Silver Reef Foundation. I'll do some research on that as well and add it to the Tourism section. The Utahraptor Talk/Contribs 02:36, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Silver Reef, Utah. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060208103743/http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/ to http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111206185559/http://public.fotki.com/jwb592002/state_of_utah/historical-silver-r/ to http://public.fotki.com/jwb592002/state_of_utah/historical-silver-r/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 11:19, 12 May 2017 (UTC)