Talk:List of ghost towns in Utah

Blue Creek

I've been told by locals in Howell, Utah (Box Elder County) that there used to be a town nearby called Blue Creek that had a lot of activity during the completion of the first trascontinental railroad. I've looked in various online sources and found very little on this possible ghost town. Does anyone know anything about this town? Should it be included on this list?GreenGlass1972 (talk) 04:01, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

There's not that much to be said about Blue Creek; it was a small, wild Union Pacific camp that lasted less than a decade. It's not mentioned in Carr's book, but Thompson gives it one column. It might get its own stub, but I don't know how much it could ever really be expanded. Feel free to add it if you like. Ntsimp (talk) 15:59, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Done and done. Thanks for your help.GreenGlass1972 (talk) 23:21, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Russian Settlement

I noticed that Russian Settlement has been added to this list. One of my random projects is an article on Russian Knoll, the early 20th century settlement near Park Valley. Same Place? The sources I'm finding refer to this town by the Russian Knoll name... any reason why the Russian Settlement name would be preferable?GreenGlass1972 (talk) 04:27, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Excellent! I've had this on my to-do list for a while. I understand from my reading that Russian Knoll refers to a geographical feature, whereas everyone calls the ghost town Russian Settlement—acknowledging, of course, that no one knows what name, if any, the Russians gave to their short-lived town. It seems hard to find information, but my sources so far include Huchel's A History of Box Elder County, Thompson's Some Dreams Die, Van Cott's Utah Place Names, and the resources at molokane.org. I also have Yates's "From Dust to Dust: A Russian Sojourn" on my list, but haven't read it yet. Who uses the name Russian Knoll, and how can we work together on this? Ntsimp (talk) 03:38, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I cut and pasted what I had so far in my computer here, since I wasn't sure how to sandbox it in a way that we could both access other than that. I'm using almost exclusively items stored on molokane.org, but that are publications from elsewhere. You're right - there is definitely a land feature called Russian Knoll, and maybe I'm just assuming the town was called that. I need to look again at my references, now that I think about it. The seed of doubt has been planted! Feel free to edit what I have as much as you like - I've seen your edits and they're always accurate and an improvement. I'm not sure of the best way to work together on this - either with the userpage article I created, or by creating the article. My thought on if we did call it Russian Settlement, however, would be to expand the article I have so far with the other Molokan (but non Jumper) settlements by Dove Creek, and Rosette. What do you think? GreenGlass1972 (talk) 04:27, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Checking my references again, you're right. It's not clear what the town was called. Let's go with Russian Settlement. GreenGlass1972 (talk) 04:37, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I like what you have so far. Looks like you've read more than I have at molokane.org; I didn't know about the other two settlements. We should certainly mention them, and include whatever detail the sources give. I may not get a chance until after the weekend, but I will get around to editing that page. Thanks. Ntsimp (talk) 13:41, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Should It Be Radically Revamped OR Deleted Altogether?

I happened upon this page by accident. Someone, or several someones, presumably put in a fair amount of effort to create this list - but the effort was seemingly as abandoned as the towns. Randomly checking a few of the linked articles, I saw enough informatiom to have filled the (mostly) empty columns attached to each town, leadimg me to wonder why folks who created the individual articles didn't chose to do so. Or, maybe this is one of those (not uncommon) instances where a list exists which really has no raison d'etre.

We have a list that includes a nearly blank column titled "County", followed by a list of counties which indicates which ghost towns are in each county, a link to a Wikimedia Commons alphabetical list of ghost towns, a reference list that states "These books have many other ghost towns not on this list" - why are they not on this list? are they less important ghost towns?

Can anyone tell me why this list should exist, at least in this format? It seems that the list by county would serve the entirety of the purpose intended with a brief text explaining that all the desired info as to status, when abandoned, etc. can be perused in the linked articles on each - because that's the route anyone wanting detail on any of these will need to take to obtain it. Irish Melkite (talk) 09:00, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm the one who moved this from the national list and developed a lot of it. Last August, Asiaticus started making the table. I didn't like it, but I was waiting to see. That project never got finished, and certainly never got sourced. As you say, this is supposed to be a list of articles, not a separate source of information. So I've reverted to the old format. Ntsimp (talk) 06:49, 9 February 2021 (UTC)