Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Farnhurst, Delaware


 * 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. RL0919 (talk) 04:10, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Farnhurst, Delaware

 * – ( View AfD View log )

An abject case of geography as game of "telephone", as it is pretty clear from the topos, once you go far enough back that the area isn't completely overrun with a sprawling highway interchange, that this is a rail spot; furthermore, Delaware Place Names, which GNIS uses as an authority even though the spot is named on the maps the whole way through, describes it as a "RR station, on the Pennsylvania RR". But "RR station" becomes "populated place", and "populated place" becomes "unincorporated community", even though there's ample evidence that there was nothing here but the rail line until someone replaced the old road with a freeway. So, yeah, fails verification. Mangoe (talk) 04:03, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Curbon7 (talk) 04:07, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Delaware-related deletion discussions. Curbon7 (talk) 04:07, 18 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep per refs. 09:44, 18 August 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djflem (talk • contribs) 09:44, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that I do not find a mere listing of a place as a "postal village" convincing. In the first place, it's pretty clear that it's just shorthand for "a village with a post office", but given the problems with various authorities assuming placenames are villages— the issue that is driving all this cleanup in the first place— it's particularly telling that a topo from only two years after the gazetteer shows no villages, only a single building by the tracks (presumably the station) and the hospital complex a short ways to the north (labelled "alms house" in this era). Neither does the first aerial of the area in 1937, nor any other aerial thereafter. The references to the interchange give it a name but do not turn the surrounding locale into a settlement.


 * The Delaware State Hospital is probably worth an article in itself, and were that article created, I would probably suggest redirecting this to it, with an appropriate passage about its proximity to the station. But it does not now exist. Mangoe (talk) 19:30, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The presupposition that a community needs to be a cluster is misguided. Rural communities (and their subsequent suburban sprawl) do not have to have an urban density to be a settlement with a name and identity. (Harlem Valley–Wingdale station and the Harlem Valley State Hospital are in a semi-rural area, which most would identify as Wingdale, which is spread out. Not exactly comparably, because of the diff in DE & NY civic/political structures interestingly similar.) That the coordinates given "appear to be of the former train station location" does not necessarily mean that was the one and only location known as Farnhurst. (As has been oft mentioned & again above, since GNIS is often wrong, why base the argument with information provide by that oft incorrect reference. Why would everything else be wrong, but the coords correct?) It is quite clear the Delaware State Hospital was IN Farnhurst, that's why people called it Farnhurst (as is cited), so Farnhurst clearly was/is a greater than the immediate vicinity of the station/coordinates (as is clearly the case with other Delaware communities such as Redden and Overbrook. If you can find a reference to say it was near the train station that would be helpful. Djflem (talk) 21:37, 18 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. I've found 1920 census population data for Farnhurst, and it was indeed considered a town/village even back then, with a population of 332. I would have already added this citation to this article (and all Delaware communities mentioned on page 175), but the number of Delaware-related deletions in the last few weeks has outpaced my ability to add references (I've been traveling), and additionally one of my PDFs (the 1900 one) has gone corrupt. Still, though, Farnhurst meets WP:GEOLAND as a populated place, with a verifiable population listed in serious reference works. I don't know why we would delete an article on a place noted in other reference works. While there does need to be clean-up of sub-stubs, this article is no longer a stub, and I'm seeing some troubling dismissal of historic reference works (like the 1904 Gazetteer of Delaware) in some of these nominations. Assuming a printed reference work is incorrect in an AFD is troubling, because it's really the opposite of what we should be doing. Firsfron of Ronchester  22:11, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep As it was a community with an actual population. As Firsfron suggests above, I would encourage the nominator to slow down the pace of Delaware AfDs, to allow sources to be found. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 12:08, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Based on the references that Djflem and Firsfron found, this seems like a notable place regardless of how you evaluate it. In particular, if older print gazetteers thought Farnhurst was worth including, I don't see how it's not worth including on Wikipedia. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 02:02, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep, based on the expansion (although reading through it, I almost wonder if/when an article is written about the hospital, that Farnhurst and the hospital should share a single page. This location and the hospital seem to be tightly related, and I'm not sure that two pages would be the best route to go there). Hog Farm Talk 15:29, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * comment I'm continuing to have the same issues with this discussion. First, the population number is meaningless: the hospital alone had more beds than that, even after a substantial reduction in the 1980s, so it's not impossible that everyone so counted was a patient. Second, the classification of places is something we already know that these geographic references have a problem with; after all, that's what has driven all these cleanup operations, because people assumed that these databases of placenames were accurate, though it was readily proven that they weren't and that they had to be validated even against their own sources.
 * Looking at the expanded article, all the substance is about the hospital, and that includes the population number. And my problem here is the insistence that this is an "unincorporated community". I don't see how this description can be defended on the basis of me having to pick among the various sources, given that it's something none of them say, and some implicitly disagree with. Nobody says it's a rural community, and the evidence is against it being a town— and yes, I do hold that secondary sources have to be consistent with their supposed sources. If we're willing to call this a notable locale, I can live with that, but not a town or some euphemism like "community". Mangoe (talk) 18:39, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I generally agree with this. I really don't think that this was ever really viewed as a separate location from the hospital. Should probably be termed as a "locale" or such, and this and the hospital should have a single article. (probably under the title for the hospital). Hog Farm Talk 04:42, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * For the record, there were two hospitals, here: the State Hospital (the Asylum for "the insane") and the New Castle County Hospital (which was also an almshouse for the poor). The population numbers aren't "meaningless": it's very clear the 541 people in the State Hospital aren't included in the 332 people in Farnhurst (because Math). The Almshouse's population (220) subtracted from the 332 people in Farnhurst still leaves 112 people. Farnhurst's residents (at least, those outside the Almshouse) lived on the grid of roads directly east and north of the two hospitals: Landers Lane, Central Avenue, Jansen Avenue, Lovelace Avenue, and what at that time was called Highway 13, as shown on the early 20th century map (post-1934, but undated) already included as a reference in the article. The contention that Farnhurst was never called a community is belied by the sources: Wilmington Evening Journal, 1901-02-19, page 4, mentions the village; 1904 Gazetteer of Delaware calls Farnhurst a post village; 1925 Premiere Atlas, Rand McNally lists Farnhurst among the towns with census data; 1960 World Book Encyclopedia lists Farnhurst under towns with census data (pop. 350); GNIS calls this a populated place. GNIS could be wrong, but all the others? Quite unlikely.
 * This deletion nomination was based on the belief that there was "nothing here but the rail line", but sources confirm not just the rail station but two noted, historic hospitals; a number of cemeteries; a post office; a stage stop; a school, and the houses along the Highway 13 grid streets, with multiple reliable sources reporting a population, here, that is outside of the State Hospital. Doing a little original research, aerial photos from 1937 confirm at least twelve houses along Central Avenue and Lovelace Avenue, and by the 1954 aerial, we can see more than 30 houses along those two streets, Landry Lane now partially obliterated by the Interstate exchange, along with the distinctive shape of the school to the southwest. The 1948 topos show 30+ houses along Central and Lovelace, and we can see these streets today on Google Street View.
 * Too many sources, here, call this place a "town", "village", "populated place", or even give population figures for this to be a locale. Firsfron of Ronchester  18:31, 23 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. As per my comments on the Landenberg Junction, Delaware deletion debate, I vote to keep because historical communities deserve to be documented and are notable regardless of size or what was built over them.--Fallingintospring (talk) 06:07, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep, per the significant expansion that's taken place; compare the revision at the time of nomination with the current article. It's hardly recognizable -- and I think it's unlikely it would be nominated the way it is now. Sure, not all of the sources are demonstrating GNG pass, but there's 29 of them, which is fairly substantial, and the article has a lot of fleshed-out prose that demonstrate their relevance to the content. jp×g 21:38, 24 August 2021 (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.