Wikipedia:WikiProject Ghost towns

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Welcome to the Ghost towns WikiProject. We are a group dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of listings on ghost towns throughout the world.

(For general information on WikiProjects, please see Wikipedia:WikiProject and the Guide to WikiProjects).

See a list of the project's open tasks.

[edit] Project information

[edit] Scope

The project covers all articles about ghost towns and defunct settlements. This is to include any towns or municipalities which were absorbed by another entity. Though the popular image (and the images to the right) are of ghost towns in the Western United States there are myriad defunct settlements and ghost towns in the eastern half of the U.S. as well. Ghost towns exist worldwide, in the classical "old west" sense as well as in the non-traditional sense, e.g. cities abandoned because of wars. This project will strive to be all-inclusive. This page should be revamped, be bold, and the U.S. stuff put into its own division. Other division should be created as interest merits. The division pages should be like so: Wikipedia:WikiProject Ghost towns/United States, Wikipedia:WikiProject Ghost towns/Canada, Wikipedia:WikiProject Ghost towns/Australia etc. The pages should be structured after this main page, ah yes, copy and paste, for the sake of consistency.

Our main categories for this project are:

• Category:Ghost towns
• Category:WikiProject Ghost towns articles

See a list of the project's open tasks.

[edit] Goals

• Improve Wikipedia's coverage of listings on ghost towns.
• Create guidelines for ghost town articles.
• Determine guidelines for article creation and notability of individuals and companies affiliated with ghost towns.

Contents 1 Project information 1.1 Scope 1.2 Goals 1.3 Members 1.4 Article Guidelines 1.4.1 Article names 1.4.2 Resources 2 Open tasks 3 Assessment 4 Recognized content 4.1 Featured articles 4.2 Good articles 4.3 Did you know... 4.4 Featured candidates 5 Collaboration 6 New contributions 6.1 New articles 6.2 New pictures 7 Requests 7.1 Article requests by state 7.2 Photo requests by state 8 Templates 8.1 Talk page 8.2 Userboxen 8.3 Stubs 8.4 Awards

[edit] Members

Please feel free to add yourself here, and to indicate any areas of particular interest, state, territory, country etc.

• IvoShandor: Texas, Illinois.
• Ebyabe: Florida.
• Huwmanbeing: Indiana and Illinois.
• Geologyguy: Montana.
• Crazyjae: Arizona.
• ronbo76: California.
• CrystalKU: Kansas.
• Chupper: Illinois.
• Gnangarra : Western Australia
• Plazak: Colorado
• Pete Tillman: AZ, NM, NV
• Lothar1976: Tx
• Elle: Kansas, Oklahoma
• Tamás Kádár: Hungary, Budapest (I'm intrested in Lake Aral's Ghost towns)
• Ntsimp: Utah.
• Saint Jimmy: Western USA, esp. Arizona, New Mexico, and Montana.
• Tiebelex: Minnesota
• Pitamakan: the Great Basin and Rocky Mountains areas, mostly
• Reelj: Colorado
• Deelzbub: Georgia, USA
• Hurfledurfle: Montana, esp. Western MT.

[edit] Article Guidelines

This section is meant to provide a brief outline and starting point. A more detailed discussion will be taking place here, for ideas on improving any of the following.

Articles should include: Map and external link, as well as coordinate information at the top right of the page. information as any other settlement on Wikipedia would.

This code may help for US cities. I have included an arbitrary example, fill in the coordinates of the settlement your article is about:

{{Geolinks-US-cityscale|42.0336383|-88.9356512}}

Basically, I like to follow conventions that seem to have become the norm on Wikipedia regarding cities, villages, towns and other municipalities.

Like so:

Intro

The intro should have basic information. Place name, county, state, founding if known and any other important info that needs to be top loaded.

==History==

Any history section should be more than mere speculation if possible. Cite reliable sources, see Wikipedia:Reliable sources

==Geography==

This section should always contain the coordinates, as accurately as possible. Use the following:

Esmond is located at {{coor dms|42|02|01|N|88|56|08|W|city}} (42.0336383, -88.9356512){{GR|3}}.

==Demographics==

This section is often the hardest to know to any real degree of accuracy when dealing with ghost towns. Sometimes places will be near ghost towns or ghost towns and still have some available U.S. Census data, it's good to just check anyway. Any information must also be sourced and referenced in this section.

== See also ==

Any pertinent internal links that weren't (preferably) linked in the article.

==External links==

Use this code: {{Geolinks-US-cityscale|42.0336383|-88.9356512}}

[edit] Article names

Articles should be named as any other settlement would be, e.g. (Place name, State/Territory name). In cases where there is more than one place in the same state/territory/province etc. with the same name, include the county, country, township or other higher identifying incorporaion, e.g. (Place name, State name (County name)).

[edit] Resources

For free-license historic photographs to illustrate your USA ghost town article, the best place to start is the Historic American Buildings Survey and Historic American Engineering Record:

• Search HABS/HAER

Other photo resources:

• UNR, Nevada photos, not all free, most OK for fair use.
• Western Nevada Historic Photo Collection

[edit] Open tasks

The most important open task you can participate in is what is happening at the Article guidelines talk page, make sure you check the open questions first, then chime in. We need consensus and quickly if we are going to get the intitial tasks and organization completed.

[edit] Assessment

Criteria for assessing project articles

WikiProject Ghost towns articles		Importance
		Top	High	Mid	Low	None	Total
Quality
	FA					1	1
	B	3		3			6
	Start	2	9	37	54	9	111
	Stub	1	10	73	523	16	623
	Assessed	6	19	113	577	26	741
	Unassessed				2	3	5
	Total	6	19	113	579	29	746

[edit] Recognized content

[edit] Featured articles

• Monte Ne

[edit] Good articles

[edit] Did you know...

• ...that Providence, Ohio became a ghost town in the mid-nineteenth century after suffering both a catastrophic fire and a cholera epidemic? (October 31, 2006)
• ...that a wooden grain elevator is the only building still operational in Boyd, Oregon? (December 16, 2006)
• ...that Mogollon, New Mexico had a reputation as one of the wildest mining towns in the American West? (June 17, 2007)
• ...that the Friends Meeting House is the only remaining structure in the ghost town of Benjaminville, Illinois? (June 26, 2007)
• ...that DeWitty, the largest African American village ever founded in Nebraska, existed for only 29 years? (August 21, 2007)
• ...that the stagecoach line running between Kelton, Utah and several gold mines in Idaho and Montana was robbed more often than any other stage line in the Old West? (December 10, 2007)
• ...that the ghost town of Melmont, Washington was only populated for twenty years? (February 23, 2008)
• ...that the ghost town of Ajax, Utah was centered on an 11,000 square foot (1,000 m²) department store lying entirely underground? (February 25, 2008)
• ...that much of Glencoe, Oregon, was relocated to the new town of North Plains after the railroad bypassed the old town? (March 2, 2008)
• ...that Mosida, Utah was a failed planned community whose developers tried to irrigate the desert with water pumped from Utah Lake? (March 7, 2008)
• ...that Kiz, Utah, now a ghost town, was named for the first woman to settle in the area? (March 17, 2008)
• ...that Home of Truth, Utah was a religious utopian community in the 1930s whose leader claimed to receive divine revelations through her typewriter? (March 25, 2008)
• ...that Woodside, Utah is a ghost town with a roadside cold water geyser? (April 2, 2008)
• ...that the name of Mohrland, Utah was formed as an acronym from the surnames of the principal investors in its coal mining company? (April 9, 2008)
• ...that the ghost town of Buffalo City, North Carolina was once the largest community in Dare County? (May 13, 2008)
• ...that the colonial ghost town of Brunswick, North Carolina was named after Braunschweig, Germany, the birthplace of Great Britain's King George I? (May 21, 2008)
• ... that a movie set built for the 1962 Rat Pack film Sergeants 3 is often mistaken for the ghost town of Paria, Utah? (June 2, 2008)
• ... that the American Fork Railroad stopped 4 miles (6.4 km) short of the Forest City, Utah smelter it was built to serve? (June 12, 2008)

[edit] Featured candidates

[edit] Collaboration

• Ghost town: This article needs sources and inline citations at the very least. It should be a goal to bring this, probably our main article up to FA status.

[edit] New contributions

[edit] New articles

Please feel free to list your new Ghost town-related articles here (newer articles at the top, please). Any new articles that have an interesting or unusual fact in them should be suggested for the Did you know? box of the Main Page.

[edit] New pictures

Please feel free to list Ghost town-related articles with new pictures added to them here (newer pictures at the top, please). Consider nominating any particularly striking ones as featured pictures, either here or on WikiCommons, wherever they're stored.

[edit] Requests

[edit] Article requests by state

Colorado:

• Pearl - a Ghost Town in Jackson County, cite of Uranium mine, abandoned mid 1900s
• Coalmont - a Ghost Town in Jackson County, abandoned in 1970s or 80s
• Teller City - a Ghost Town in Jackson County abandoned in 1870s or 1880s
• Kings Canyon - a Ghost Town in Jackson County abandoned in early 1970s

[edit] Photo requests by state

[edit] Templates

[edit] Talk page

Code	Result
{{WikiProject Ghost towns}} Placed on article talk page of any Ghost town-related articles.	This article or page is part of WikiProject Ghost towns, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of ghost towns. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. NA This article has been rated as na-Class on the assessment scale. NA This article has been rated as NA-importance on the assessment scale.
{{WikiProject Ghost towns list}} Placed on article talk page of any Ghost town-related list.	This list is part of WikiProject Ghost towns, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of ghost towns. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
{{WikiProject Ghost towns category}} Placed on the talk page of any ghost town-related category.	This category is part of WikiProject Ghost towns, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of ghost towns. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
{{Wikiproject Ghost towns empty category}} Placed on the talk page of any ghost town-related empty category.	This empty category is within the scope of the WikiProject Ghost towns, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of ghost towns. It is here as part of the project and should not be deleted. Never fear, despite being empty, it will soon be populated. If you would like to participate in the project, you can visit the project page.

[edit] Userboxen

Code	Result
{{User WikiProject Ghost towns}} Placed on the user page of any WikiProject Ghost towns member	' This user is a member of WikiProject Ghost towns.
{{User WikiProject Ghost towns2}} Placed on the user page of any WikiProject Ghost towns member	This user is a member of WikiProject Ghost towns.
{{User Ghost towns}} Placed on user page of any user who loves ghost towns as much as us.	This user is fascinated by ghost towns.

[edit] Stubs

Code	Result
{{ghost-town-stub}} Placed on any stub related to Ghost towns.	This ghost town-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[edit] Awards

This award is not "offcially" approved. But if you have a better one feel free to substitute or add it here.

Image	What to type	Description
	{{subst:WikiProject Ghost towns Barnstar|message ~~~~}}	WikiProject Ghost towns Barnstar This barnstar is given to recognize particularly fine contributions to WikiProject Ghost towns articles, to let people know that their hard work is seen and appreciated.