Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beegum, California


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. WP:HEY – nominator also stated they were happy to withdraw based on the improvements and new sourcing. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:26, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Beegum, California

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Fails GEOLAND due to lack of evidence of being a legally recognised populated place.

The sources provided in the article are:
 * GNIS, which is unreliable for whether a place was populated or not per WP:GNIS.
 * Jim Forte's Postal History site, a blog. The listing there states only "Beegum (1895-1917)". Not reliably-sourced per WP:SPS, not significant coverage. Even if this can be reliably source, a post office can be situated anywhere, and were especially in the 19th and early 20th century - they could be in wayside stores, farm-houses, mines, and need not be linked to populated communities at all.
 * Tehama County Place Names by Hislop and Hughes - this is a self-published book and thus unreliable per WP:SPS. That it is self-published is evident from the fact that no publisher is identified in the book, nor does it have an ISBN despite being written in 2007. Whilst the editor who added this source identified it as being published by the "Tehama County Department of Education", in fact it was simply previously hosted on their website, likely because local school children contributed research towards it (see the acknowledgements section). The coverage in the source consists of two paragraphs - one discussing Beegum Peak/Creek and the post office, and the other discussing the various locations shown for Beegum in different maps. This is not significant coverage of Beegum as a community. It is notable that the fact that Beegum is described as being located in both Shasta and Tehama counties in our article appears to be due, not to the boundaries of this supposed community, but to different maps showing it in different location miles apart. Notably two of the maps discussed did not show the location.

As part of my WP:BEFORE search I searched Newspapers.com for Beegum+Shasta and Beegum+Tehama, however all of the results I found were related to Beegum creek or Beegum road, not to any community. If there ever was a community here, it does not seem to have attracted any coverage from any of the newspapers on newspapers.com, or if it did I have not found it.

Looking at the location given in the article, what appears to be a farm can be seen, and perhaps some ruined buildings - of what nature it is hard to say - on the other side of the Beegum road. There is not any obvious evidence of an inhabited community there, still less a legally-recognised one.

In terms of ATDs, redirecting to the county is problematic due to it not being clear which county this location is supposed to be located in. The articles about Beegum Creek and Beegum Peek do not appear to be any better in terms of notability, so redirecting to them seems dubious. Of course I'm open to suggestions but deletion seems the only obvious option unless there is sourcing I've missed. FOARP (talk) 11:19, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Geography and California. FOARP (talk) 11:19, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete Hard call. The place definitely existed; the Red Bluff Daily News had a "Beegum Notes" column in the 1910s, listing local gossip.  And I can find several references to a "Beegum district", so likely more of a rural school district than a town per se.  This kind of thing was once common in the American West in the pre-automobile age, rural areas organized into loosely-defined communities or districts without formal boundaries or legal definition, all sharing a church or post office or grange hall.  I hate to see such places deleted from the internet, but we need better sourcing and more information to have a respectable article. (To me, the problem with Hislop and Hughes isn't that it's a SPS but that it's primary; I might accept the sources if there were other primary sources pointing in the same direction). WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 15:12, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * FOARP is still putting about xyr bunkum about a source written by two credentialled historians with advanced degrees in the subject associated with the Tehama County Genealogical & Historical Society being "local schoolchildren". I debunked this try-anything tripe, because it has ducked and weaved from angle to angle across AFD discussion to AFD discussion, at greatest length in Articles for deletion/El Camino, California.  This argument is utter drivel.  If we read the acknowledgements, we also find, for example "the staff of the Tehama County Assessor’s Office" acknowledged, but that doesn't make as nearly a convenient way of dismissing it as the patronizing "the great kids at Red Bluff Union High School and their teach Mr. Osbourne who I'm sure did a great job at their class-project for US history".  We should not trust FOARP's source analysis here.  The craziness of reading the acknowledgements section, not the title page where the authors actually are along with their degrees (which are indeed in history, as one can find elsewhere), and repeatedly (it has been across 4 discussions, now) trying to make out that this is schoolchidren authoring something bespeaks of a wilful mis-reading of a source. Uncle G (talk) 18:49, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Dude, seriously. I literally never said the kids authored the book. I only said that school kids contributed to it, which is true.
 * Also, speaking as someone with a Master's, let me be the first to point out that an MA is not an "advanced degree" and that having one does not make you a "credentialed historian".
 * This is a self-published source. You've made all sorts of accusations against me, but this is a self-published source . It would be great if you could engage with that. FOARP (talk) 20:19, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Of course you did. "the great kids at Red Bluff Union High School and their teach Mr. Osbourne who I'm sure did a great job at their class-project for US history" &mdash; you patronized these people for their class project, and they aren't even the authors of the work.  An M.A. is in fact an advanced degree.  "a university degree (such as a master's or doctor's degree) " &mdash; both Merriam-Webster and Oxford.  These people got bacclauereates and masters in their fields, and then worked and published in them, and even got cited on occasion by other historians.  This whole attempt to discredit a source with the whole "school kids" &mdash; "kids &mdash; false narrative is quite ludicrous.  Uncle G (talk) 21:53, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * @Uncle G - Of course I didn’t: I’m merely pointing out that they contributed to it, which is a point against its reliability. This is evidently true and demonstrable from the source itself.
 * My main objection remains that Hislop and Hughes published this themselves. Again, this is evident from the fact that no publisher is identified in the source and it has no ISBN number.
 * I have no idea why you have become so fixated on this issue of this source being contributed to by school kids, to the point of repeated incivility and personal attacks. I hope you will reflect on your conduct here. I am sorry to see an admin I often agree with and whose contributions I often value behaving in this fashion. FOARP (talk) 07:21, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hey, @Uncle G, please back off FOARP. Let's just talk about the article. -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 20:42, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Let's talk about the source cited in the article. Wait!  We are, and how its authorship has been egregiously mis-represented in 4 AFD discussions over and over, as being the work of schoolchildren.  Perhaps the most ridiculous thing is that by the same token one could equally credit the work to two history magazines and a county assessor's office, by this bogus method.  They get thanked by the authors, too.  But the reality is that the authors are right there on the title page.  They are in fact two professional historians, with advanced level degrees, writing in their field of long-time expertise.  (Hislop has other stuff that goes back to the 1970s.)  Uncle G (talk) 21:53, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * @Uncle G - “professional historians”. Citation needed here. As far as I can see neither was an academic. Hislop was a high school teacher apparently - is that what you mean by “professional historian”? FOARP (talk) 07:12, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete - nothing there. Google Earth satellite imagery shows nothing but three homes, several outbuildings and two old foundations.
 * -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 20:38, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * But we cover ghost towns, right, so long as they were notable in their day? jengod (talk) 09:14, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * A ghost town is physically recognizable as a formerly real communities. So yes, once notable, always notable. The absence of any ghostly remains (besides 2 foundations) is one reason I don't think this was a community.
 * -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 22:00, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I've seen you do this in several AFD discussions, A. B., base your opinion on one current Google Earth image. Certainly that provides zero historical context that can be found in sources. Liz Read! Talk! 06:56, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
 * @Liz, so don't use Google Earth then?
 * -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 07:06, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
 * A. B., of course, everyone is welcome to use whatever tools you can find. But it seems like you are basing your entire "vote"/opinion on a current snapshot and many other editors are digging into old newspapers, historical society journals, etc. I think when we are considering places, a current photo from a satellite would provide limited information on the history of any location. I know a Google satellite image of where I live wouldn't reveal what existed in this place before the 1970s and, for all I know, the land was probably used for agriculture or a settlement or a marketplace or school or something besides the apartment building that sits in this spot right now. I just don't think it provides enough information to take a Keep/Deletion argument on. That's just what I was thinking. Liz Read! Talk! 02:59, 12 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment - my money is on the settlement (once) having existed by name, but maybe it doesn't any longer. I've found some very slight possible indications including | this one by Gudde which talks of it being a settlement in the 1960s. |2 is not so clear but seems to imply a place called Beegum near the state highway. It also appears as a listing in the |The Times index-gazetteer of the world as a place. I think there may be more if one looked harder, and fwiw I accept the source which was under discussion above. However I don't see that there is enough information here to include it as a page. Possibly we can confirm the location, but what else can be said about it from the sources? They all say practically nothing about it. JMWt (talk) 12:25, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
 * For completeness, I have also found in the newspaper archives references to a Post Office at Beegum - and also tangential references to it (a fire on a mountain near Beegum). My read now is that it was a collection of dwellings associated with the Platinum mine. It wouldn't surprise me if the location of the dwellings/buildings had moved over time and it's entirely possible that it consisted of the Post Office and not much else. JMWt (talk) 15:13, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Comment jengod (talk) 09:03, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep per new sources brought up (satisfy WP:GNG and WP:GEOLAND Wikipedia guidelines). बिनोद थारू (talk) 03:54, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * To satisfy GNG would require significant coverage of the place in multiple reliable sources, but no source gives it that. To satisfy GEOLAND requires evidence of legal recognition, but again no source gives it that. New sources mentioning Beegum have been found, but as @JMWt points out, they say practically nothing about it. FOARP (talk) 07:21, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * For me the situation stands like this: we know there was a mine and a PO there. We don't know for certain there was ever a dwelling. Even if there was "Beegum" may have just been the name of a house or a farm. Until/unless we have something which shows it was a dwelling (of more than a single house), I think it is delete. JMWt (talk) 08:12, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I think Beegum Creek is the border between Tehama and Shasta so it's like El Paso/Cuidad Juarez, kind of one place in two jurisdictions.
 * are we just trying to prove it was a populated place?
 * application for post office in 1900 said PO would serve 45 people
 * 34yo housewife Carrie Goodrum died in Beegrum in 1908
 * 80yo stockraiser Wm Budden died died "Beegum P.O., Tehama Co., California' in 1911
 * J.N. Cantrell "died at Beegum" in 1905
 * "They moved to California in 1887 first settling at Maxwell Colusa county where he followed farming He then purchased the Beegum properties now owned by the family and conducted a freight depot and roadhouse there for many years until the days of freighting by team into the mining sections became thing of the past...survived by Mrs Frank Ball of Beegum" Apr 7, 1930
 * "ON TRIAL FOR MURDER Geo D Wheeler of Beegum on Trial at Redding The trial of G D Wheeler of Beegum on a charge of murder commenced in the Superior Court at Redding Tuesday Wheeler it will be remembered killed David Frederick Smith near Beegum in the extreme southwestern part of Shasta county on the 25th of last June...A goodly number of witnesses have been summoned from the Beegum and Harrison Gulch sections" Sept 1902
 * "mountain mining town"
 * "copper found near Beegum...the McClennan boys who reside at Beegum


 * Let's take these sources in turn:
 * The application for a post office. This is a prediction (i.e., WP:CRYSTAL) and there's no indication these people all lived in the same permanent community.
 * Births/deaths. Such notices typically just give the closest named location, are sourced to family members, and don't necessarily demonstrate anyone living there.
 * On trial for murder: This rather reinforces the point that this is not a distinct community. The references are to the "Beechum section", Beegum will have been simply used as a reference point for the residence of the accused etc.
 * "Mountain mining town" - The issue here is nothing further is said to validate this "town" which would normally imply a fairly large community. It seems to reinforce the point that this was really a mine. At most there was a garage that two brothers had a dispute over, not an actual community.
 * "Copper found near Beegum" - This reinforces the point that this was probably a mine.
 * And generally all of these are WP:PRIMARY sources, and we should not engage in original research by piecing them together to create a WP:SYNTH. Wikipedia is not in the business of publishing original local histories assembled from run-of-the-mill news paper stories. To get a WP:GNG pass we need significant coverage in multiple reliable sources, but these sources do not say anything about the actual community of Beegum. They instead hint at various things that might have been true about it (e.g., that it was a mine, that people mined copper there, that there was a garage here, etc.) without dealling with the topic "directly and in detail" as required by WP:SIGCOV. FOARP (talk) 09:25, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Cool, man. Anyway, at the present time we might consider a redirect to Shasta-Trinity National Forest since they have this Post Creek Lookout rental above Beegum Gorge, and Beegum Gorge Campground. Cheers, jengod (talk) 09:43, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * It makes more sense than any other redirect I can think of anyway, other than the Beegum Creek redirect discussed below, though ideally the target page should at least mention Beegum somewhere. FOARP (talk) 11:07, 9 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Beegum Creek. The most salient feature of the Beegum area is its history in mining. Thus most of the article will end up focusing on the area's geology rather than about its history as a populated community. So, rather than continue expanding the article on Beegum, California, we should expand the article on the creek (also to avoid kicking the can down the road by requiring a merge). In light of the various pieces of coverage found so far, there isn't really a strong case for keeping two distinct articles. Cielquiparle (talk) 11:02, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Having looked in to this, I think there's SIGCOV out there for Beegum Gorge (e.g.,, , ), which the creek flows through, so I'd agree that a redirect and then maybe a expansion at Beegum Creek and maybe renaming it to Beegum Gorge makes sense. FOARP (talk) 11:11, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * There is also a LOT of coverage on Beegum Basin (distinct from Beegum Gorge). Cielquiparle (talk) 11:15, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * That could work also. FOARP (talk) 11:44, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * See this is what confounds me: There was a general location that people know as "the vicinity of Beegum" that has a lot of history and physical geography associated with that one tag, Beegum. Does it need to have been a populated hamlet with 15 people and 3 houses, now or in 1915, if "Beegum, California" would serve as a handy catch-all destination for information about Beegum Creek and Beegum post office and Beegum Mining District and Beegum Gorge and Beegum Basin and the history of the dispersed people who lived in the remote and rugged area around the border of Tehama and Shasta counties? Like just delete the latitude and longitude and the "populated place" or "unincorporated community" and finesse the lede and done and done. jengod (talk) 15:40, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Actually this is something I could get behind. But then you are actually arguing for WP:TNT it seems to me. JMWt (talk) 16:58, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * My current thinking is:
 * Beegum Creek article should include content on Beegum Basin (as well as mining history and even the post office if better sources are found)
 * Shasta-Trinity National Forest should include more content on Beegum Gorge
 * Cielquiparle (talk) 17:42, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Seems to me that this is out of scope of an AfD discussion and should probably be a merge discussion on a talkpage JMWt (talk) 18:08, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I might just add that I'm leaning opposite for Red Bank, California and Red Bank Creek. Although "Red Bank" the human settlement is also often referred to as "Red Bank Creek", and the history of the two is obviously intertwined, in that case there seems to be enough content on the historic human settlement, such that it merits a standalone page in addition to the page about the creek and its surrounding area. Cielquiparle (talk) 18:37, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Striking previous !vote. Found more coverage on the town and slowly adding it to this article. Cielquiparle (talk) 09:24, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
 * keep I think it meets GEOLAND and the sources found in the article at this point are probably above the WP:N bar too. Hobit (talk) 19:23, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment I agree with above too. बिनोद थारू (talk) 03:12, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep, this looks like a pass of the notability criteria with the expansion. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:45, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:GNG and WP:HEY as the article has expanded: Beegum, California. Three articles providing an overview of various aspects of the history of the Beegum community include: "The bygone town of Beegum" (2009); the 1930 obituary of Beegum pioneer Isaac Selvester; and "For First Time in Half Century Beegum School Fails to Open" in Red Bluff Daily News (1943). Beyond that, the highway between Beegum and Peanut – a topic discussed repeatedly between 1913 and 1933 in the California state legislature – helped to put Beegum "on the map" at the state level. (And, for the period it had state highway status, helped the local economy...until California State Route 36 finally bypassed the town/hamlet completely, leading to its eventual "abandonment".) Cielquiparle (talk) 00:43, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep per excellent work done by Cielquiparle. Interested in why the nominator's search did not find these sources. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:16, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for reading, @Espresso Addict. FYI – I also found it very difficult at first to find the sources we needed to contextualize all the "bits" that everyone was seeing, especially because there was so much noise – Beegum Creek, Beegum Peak, Beegum Gorge, Beegum Road, and Beegum Basin. What cracked it for me finally was searching for Beegum town, and going from there to ask more specific questions. Cielquiparle (talk) 10:34, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * And...it turned out that back in the day, the spelling "Bee Gum" was interchangeable with "Beegum". Cielquiparle (talk) 11:04, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Request reconsideration by previous commenters @Jengod, @JMWt, @Uncle G, @WeirdNAnnoyed in light of current state of article. Cielquiparle (talk) 21:27, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep as a notable location. Great job improvers! jengod (talk) 21:33, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep - Happy to withdraw based on the new sourcing. FOARP (talk) 09:18, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Don't forget the Beegum Mining Company from the 1955 Minerals Yearbook, Cielquiparle, part of the chromite mining in the 1930s/1940s, with its truck road to Beegum. (See , by Diller and various other reports.) Uncle G (talk) 13:37, 13 November 2023 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.