Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dennison, Arizona


 * 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 no consensus to delete, after much-extended time for discussion. BD2412 T 15:24, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Dennison, Arizona

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

It's just a name on a map. It "was merely a siding with no gas, motels or services for the tourists." The GNIS was wrong in calling it a populated place, the National Gazetteer properly classifies it as a locale. Nothing remains there and the mass-production of the microstub with the falsehood "is a populated place" was negligent. Reywas92Talk 20:06, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Arizona-related deletion discussions. Reywas92Talk 20:06, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 04:54, 4 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete Again, not a populated place. GNIS picked it up from the | Tucker Mesa Topo Map, which clearly shows this is a rail siding, probably named after the nearby hill. Absolutely no indication of GNG required under GEOLAND#2. MB 21:27, 2 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment Seems to have been a railroad station as listed here. In this place name book it's listed as "DENNISON (Coconino) — For an assistant roadmaster named Denny who had charge of Santa Fe Railroad track gangs.". I find a mention in newspaper archives "the Court held both Mexicans to the May term of the Superior Court. The check was given by the Santa Fe in payment of wages. It was given at camp Dennison, in Coconino County, about 6 miles from Winslow, for $1.93 and raised to $11.90. The Mexicans took the check to Winslow and tried to get it cashed" (The Coconino Sun 20 Feb 1914, Fri) and in this court testimony "Question: Where do you reside? Answer: Have been residing at Dennison. Question: You are employed as section foreman of the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Company at Dennison? Answer: Yes, sir, at Dennison." which is supported by a contemporary article about the same incident stating "Thomas McSweeny, section foreman at Dennison A. T., who was bought to the city on belated No.2 yesterday" (Arizona Republic 03 Apr 1899).Pontificalibus 14:08, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete This area fails to meet the guidelines of WP:GEOLAND. Not a legally recognized place and no RS to support GNG. Lightburst (talk) 04:54, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Because I couldn't find a redirect target, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway doesn't list stations etc Pontificalibus 07:41, 5 January 2020 (UTC) changing to keep see below
 * Keep I went from delete to weak delete to weak keep to keep as I've continued to search through 19th century newspapers. Though which was a legal resolution to change the name of the road at exit 239 on Interstate 40, which is where the point on the map is found. "WHEREAS: It appears that Dennison, from which the road name was derived, is a phone station on the Santa Fe Railroad and does not have an association with the traveling public, also, the designation of Meteor City Road would help the traveling public get on the correct ramp for Meteor City, which now has gasoline and food for sale." We could, in theory, keep this information if we wanted to. It is referred to as a point in other newspapers such as    . This  suggests there was a station there in 1894. It was included  here as a place that would fall within Coconino County in 1889. The Dennison section foreman died in 1899. It's called a "small station"  here from 1891. Listed here as a description of property from 1910. . We are a gazetteer, this is historical, and there's a stub in here somewhere if someone'll let me. SportingFlyer  T · C  13:48, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment,, WP is not a gazetteer, WP:5P1 says WP has many features of a gazetteer. The specifics required at WP:GEOLAND always apply. A flag stop is not a populated place. As a train station, it certainly could be notable if there were enough sources for GNG but I don't see that here. Mentioning in another article seems more appropriate, but as stated above there isn't even an article covering stops and stations of the ATSF. I would support adding a sentence to Coconino County, Arizona in a new subsection (perhaps called "Other named places"), Dennison is a former flag stop on the ATSF, as a redirect target. MB 00:20, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I mean, it's pretty clear this will be deleted, but I don't think that's the correct result. has a source which shows the place was populated, even if barely so, at one point, and as I've noted there appears to have been a station there in the late 19th century. WP:GEOLAND is typically read to be less strict than WP:GNG for places such as these, since our goal with GEOLAND is to properly document places past and present. We've had a recent problem with the GNIS as the sole provider of information about places, and there are a number of places we've deleted as not notable, but I don't think this is one of those in the slightest. Most of those had no secondary sources whatsoever. As I've shown above, there's definitely enough sources to create a stub article about this abandoned place, and it's listed as a valid place name in place name books (not gazetteers). The fact it's a railroad stop doesn't make it much different than say Harker, Florida, except Dennison actually has some pretty clear available sources and there was (allegedly) a farm at Harker. I would have gone ahead and updated the article myself if not for the fact everyone before me !voted delete - if kept, I can definitely make this into a valuable place stub. SportingFlyer  T · C  01:59, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , I don't think that one source is convincing evidence that this was ever any kind of populated place. As a foreman on the railroad, it may well have been a tent at a work camp for a few months. This is nothing like Harker, were the source said there were farms and people lived there and commuted to work from there. I don't see the value in a stub for an abandoned flag stop when all we know about this can be put into a sentence in another article. I support a redirect so if someone reads one of these sources and goes to WP to find out more, we are able to serve them by getting them to that sentence. But we need more than this for an article. MB 19:54, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I've got access to newspapers.com finally and I'm sure there's somewhere the content could be listed as a train stop, but I'm not convinced about it as a place. Every one of these is with respect to the rails or an incident with train cars rather than it being a community. I'm not sure what the abbreviation in "Dennison A.T." at stands for, but it's about man named Thomas McSweeney who was a section foreman killed by a job applicant named John Smiley in April 1899. Pontificalibus's source  is a fictionalized book of ghost stories that uses a section foreman T.J. McSweeney killed by a George Smiley in October 1899, so I don't think that it's reliable or shows it was a community any more than a work site. I wouldn't think a logging camp, oil rig, mining camp, or whatever should be covered as populated places when all sources are in context of the industry there. Reywas92Talk 20:26, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I remain unconvinced this should be deleted. Wikipedia does function as a gazetteer, and even though in practice that means we're not a directory of place names, it means that places don't need to make much of a showing of notability to be kept. The GNIS stubs which we have been deleting were mere subdivisions within larger places, or place names without any evidence of any human activity, ie river crossings or windmills, but this place was based around railroad infrastructure and is named repeatedly as such in period papers. I'm now discounting the ghost story, though. Even if this is only a historical train stop, there's still enough sources here to write a blurb about a proper place. The fact the place has been listed in multiple "how Arizona places got their names" book further shows that, at some point, this was treated as an officially named place with a train station, even if there's no sources that support any sort of population finding. There's nothing really to draftify, but I'm still happy to expand this article if it's kept. (Dennsion A.T. means the Dennison section of the Atchison Topeka line.) SportingFlyer  T · C  00:39, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep or merge to Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. That article contains a list of trains that ran on the line, and there's no reason why it shouldn't contain a list of stations with appropriate descriptions of each. Just because that article doesn't currently discuss stations, doesn't mean this article should be deleted. I would compare this to Dovey Junction railway station as an example of a mainline heavy rail station that didn't end up turning into a populated place, but which is nevertheless notable as some kind of amalgam of an unpopulated place / building / infrastructure feature. A merge might be indicated due to lack of sources, but that would only be because this station fell out of use before railway geeks and travel journalists started publishing stuff.Pontificalibus 16:52, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   06:55, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep The article has been expanded with references. And Wikipedia serves as a gazetteer. Thank you-RFD (talk) 11:10, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * WP does not serve as a gazetteer (without regard to notability). GEOLAND specifically says "WP has features of a gazetteer; therefore, geographical features meeting Wikipedia's General notability guideline (GNG) are presumed, but not guaranteed, to be notable." The article was padded out with trivia and tangential things that do not establish notability. MB 03:15, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * From July 17, 2012, when it was an essay draft, until December 6, 2019, GEOLAND said "Per Wikipedia's Five pillars, the encyclopedia also functions as a gazetteer; therefore, geographical features meeting Wikipedia's General notability guideline (GNG) are presumed, but not guaranteed, to be notable." This last December, Reywas92 changed it to "has features of," which is a major change. I've reverted it per WP:BRD. It's always been my understanding that Wikipedia functions as a gazetteer, and that if a populated place can be verified, historical or not, then it's notable enough for an article. SportingFlyer  T · C  04:44, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with User:SportingFlyer; Wikipedia functions as a gazetteer. Thank you-RFD (talk) 08:57, 13 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete No sign of significant coverage that would meet GNG. Events such as completion of double-tracking and people killed in/near the area merely use Dennison as a placemarker and do not discuss it in depth. –dlthewave ☎ 20:18, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep The article has plenty of sources, and the standard of significant coverage is met. The delete arguments in this discussion seem to be moving the goalposts. The original argument for deleting this article was that the place wasn't a real place at all, which was disproven. The argument then shifted to a lack of sources, even though sourcing requirements for places like this have traditionally been lower than other articles, in part because of the likely existence of offline sources and in part due to the traditional gazetteer component of encyclopedias. Now that the article has thirteen sources, the argument is that they don't constitute significant coverage. I've seen GAs with less significant coverage in the sources than this article has. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 04:52, 15 January 2020 (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.