Talk:List of ghost towns in Texas

What is a ghost town

I think we should revisit what a ghost town actually is. Some of the listings here are just small communities, either started as small, or portions of the population saw opportunity elsewhere. But people still live here. I would say a ghost town is an abandoned area, not one where the population changed but is still active. — Maile (talk) 20:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Thurber is described as a ghost town by Handbook of Texas which seems to be a reasonable source. I don't think the definition for a ghost town needs to be that strict (i.e., disqualifying it from "ghost town" status if it has a small handful of residents in the general area. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 23:23, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Luckenbach removed

I have removed Luckenbach from this list, as it's not a ghost town and never was. It was still operating a school system in 1967. For more than the last half century, Luckenbach has been privately owned, operated as a for-profit tourist attraction. This is no more a ghost town than Disneyland or Branson, Missouri - same operation, just on a much smaller scale. It does have a TV-movie set aura about, but movie sets aren't real ghost towns, either.

Willie Nelson has had his annual picnics there; Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson had a successful record album using Luckenbach as its basis. Many artists have performed shows there, and recorded in the facilities. There have been annual chili cookoffs that draw people from around the world. Ghost towns don't generally produce monthly newsletters, as Luckenbach has done. It does not qualify as a ghost town. — Maile (talk) 20:14, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Loyal Valley also removed

Loyal Valley is not a true ghost town, just a very small rural community. It's always been a small community, but people still live there and work the land. — Maile (talk) 20:46, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Removing Zuehl

Based on Zuehl, Texas, I see nothing that qualifies this as a ghost town. It is also an active part of a school district. — Maile (talk) 22:36, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Others

I've removed others, and am going through one-by-one checking against sourcing. An active population, a school district, community activities, or any other evidence of an ongoing community, means it is not a ghost town. Live people live there. — Maile (talk) 23:25, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I restored Thurber based on the Texas Handbook source; a few others I looked at in that handbook don't mention "ghost town" so I'm fine with removing those. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 23:36, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

OK, per your request on my talk page, I've halted my deletions for now. This list, however. does need to be cleaned up. It's a big state - it's a big list, and it needs to be monitored now and then. — Maile (talk) 23:41, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I was concerned there was going to me more examples like Thurber (where we have a good source describing it as a ghost town); I'm not going to object if you continue to clean up the page, though I'd ask that you check the Texas Handbook to verify that it's not listed as a ghost town there (and it's not already sourced elsewhere on the page that it's a ghost town). OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 01:13, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll give it some thought on doing it slowly that way. Handbook of Texas is kind of my bible, so I'm glad you suggest it. I started out just trying to source everything, and then went to Luckenbach being listed as a ghost town. And Loyal Valley, Texas, which I created, being listed as a ghost town. But I'll have a look. Thanks. — Maile (talk) 01:21, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources

Ohnoitsjamie I'm rechecking sources as I go. I just noticed one that was added due to what appears to be a questionable source - Ghost Towns.com. Based on this entry, it looks like that source doesn't even require a last name or documentation. I think that source does not meet Wikipedia requirements. I've removed it, because Handbook of Texas entry does not say much more than it's a small town. Please feel free to disagree. — Maile (talk) 14:31, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, that source is questionable, especially since we already have better sources (namely the Handbook). I'm guessing that some of the material on ghosttowns.com is accurate, but it looks to be mostly based on user contributions. Might be OK to list in external links, but wouldn't pass RS. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 14:50, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Too many iffy

I'm coming across so many where neither the Handbook of Texas, nor the Texas Almanac classify them as ghost towns - but users edited the articles to say they are. Apparently, many are alive but have very small populations. There's so many, I think I'll just leave sourced notes, rather than delete them from the list. — Maile (talk) 16:27, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Or just remove. Lots that should not be on this list. — Maile (talk) 19:13, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

For questionable entries that are lacking a source, you could also tag them with a {{cn}} tag. If we decided to purge unsourced entries later, that makes it easier. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 23:35, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

So, what I'm doing, if I remove any at all, are the ones that look pretty clear to me are some that began as small communities, and still are, or similar situations. I haven't been removing as many as I originally thought, mostly because it's probably better to just list the sourcing. Once I make it through the whole list the first time, I really do think this will be more manageable if we break the table into smaller tables, still alphabetically listed. That would make it easier for other editors to add to a group, or to edit existing listings. — Maile (talk) 01:40, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

• Ohnoitsjamie I added back everything I initially deleted, and decided to go with the flow and assume all are true ghost towns that need to be sourced. See section below this, and the section below that. — Maile (talk) 23:12, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps later break up table into alpha sections

Not now, but after I've had a chance to check all entries. The sortable table format is pretty good, but I'm starting to see the negative by constant scrolling up and down while doing the updates. Maybe break up this long table into smaller individual tables in alpha order, more user-friendly for all editors. Especially for editors not experienced with tables. — Maile (talk) 01:51, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Soliciting advice on the size of this list

@Dank, Ohnoitsjamie, ChrisTheDude, Kavyansh.Singh, HAL333, and PresN: For all intents and purposes, the Texas project isn't all that active, and the List project seems to have died out years ago. So, I'm flying by the seat of my virtual pants on this one. This is not an FL candidate, but a request for advice.

I'm seeing a size here that might in the near future be an issue with being able to edit this. Depending on the individual computer/device, it's possible that some editors/students might not be able to access this page. Any advice is welcome. The table was already there when I started adding sources. We already have 500 citations, which so far doesn't even cover each ghost town in the list. This list is not by any means complete, as Texas and has 254 counties and a LOT of little areas where populations used to live. I don't even think all the counties are on this list. More citations will be needed, if we accommodate Wikipedia's dictate on sourcing. That will probably mean some viewers/editors will not even be able to open this for editing. Does anyone have ideas of how to handle this? — Maile (talk) 23:05, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the text or images by themselves will be a problem for readers, but there are a lot of templates on the page. I haven't experimented with template limits myself. - Dank (push to talk) 01:14, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

It's nowhere near the template limit; the limit isn't the number of templates itself, but the number of "expensive" template calls, and almost every template on this page is a cite template which doesn't make any. If you view the html source you can see it at the end- right now it's at 11/500.

That said, it's 500+ items already, and the implication is that a full list would be much longer- at that point, even if there's not a technical problem, it's going to be unreadable by people. I'm not sure what you can do to fix it beyond breaking up the list into "List of ghost towns in Texas (A-L)", etc. --PresN 01:31, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

My 2 cents; I think tables are frequently overused in Wikipedia, often in cases where the table format provides no utility other than adding a bunch of lines and making editing a pain. In this particular case, the only utility the table provides is the ability to sort by county. Alternatively, you could do away with the table and break the article up into county-based sections. 254 is a lot of counties, but it's still doable. If there's a consensus to move in that direction, I'm reasonably handy with regex and text-editor magic, and could probably write a script to do some of the gruntwork in de-tablizing the article. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk

Is there any estimation of about how many total entries would be there after completion of the list? Splitting the table alphabetically seems to be a fine idea. I do think that using table here is beneficiary, but the "Notes/Refs" column takes huge space. (Also bit concerned about the number of redlinks here, but that is not going to be a big issue) Thanks! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 03:33, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Given the size of Texas, and its history of Native American settlements, followed by the 19th Century colonization by both the United States and other nations who viewed Texas as the new frontier - a "gazillion" entries are possible. And added images as editors deem appropriate. Splitting into sub pages seems logical, with links on this main page to them. Splitting the tables would not save space as long as the splits remain on the main page. — Maile (talk) 13:39, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Support converting to plain list style, if we can keep the individual existing citations by each one . Ohnoitsjamie this was only adapted to table format in July 2021, by Katrazyna, which probably seemed like a good idea at the time. But 3 months later, we see the drawback of such a hefty list converted to table. I would also say, having spent a great many days here sourcing most of it, it would been much quicker to manage a plain list, as opposed to getting everything into the correct table slot, one town at a time. The original plain list was by alpha of the town name, but alpha by county works, also. GO FOR IT!!— Maile (talk) 20:18, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Um... Wow. When I edited the list 3 months ago it did not look like this. Please be patient with a backstory...when I found the Texas lists there was huge overlap between List of unincorporated communities in Texas and this list, as well as between List of municipalities in Texas with List of villages in Texas and List of towns in Texas. It was confusing and frustrating and I wanted an easier way to compare the lists and check for duplication. So, I made this list sortable so I could easily compare it with the other lists (which are all sortable tables...I literally stole the code from the other list pages.)

I asked for help and advice at the time but couldn't get any interest and then my disposable time disappeared... and I dropped the project. The discussion I wished for back then was the first question at the top of this talk page--what is a ghost town?

Note that the first problem that led here still exists: List of municipalities in Texas completely overlaps with List of villages in Texas and List of towns in Texas. For Texas, where "city" "town" "village" is virtually meaningless, there really should be just one list of incorporated places--the other two should go away.

For the unincorporated places, do we need two? One for the current and one for the historical? If so, how can you tell the difference? Many of the "historical" places are still inhabited. How about the "towns" which are a single business/single owner? Are those current or ghost towns? Should there be overlap between the lists? Or could there be a single list of unincorporated places, with a note column that indicated how populated or not poulated it currently was? In Texas... it's just not that simple. There are unincorporated "towns" like Sierra Blanca, Texas which is the county seat of Hudspeth County, and "towns" like Cornudas, Texas which is a Cafe(what!?!), and Allamoore, Texas which...is that Natural Minerals plant the whole "town"? Blackjack, Robertson County, which doesn't even have a wikipedia article, has more houses than Allamoore plus a fire station. Places like Justiceburg, Texas are on both lists (ghost towns and unincorporated places). While neither the Texas Almanac, nor the Handbook of Texas classify this a ghost town, go look at street view on Google maps...how is that more populated than Blackjack or less populated than Allamoore? And the census figures do not help.

My deepest wish is that each "town" appears on just one list. Much easier to update and change and keep consistent. One list could work--with a note about its current state. Two lists that at least do not overlap could work, but then you have to definitively judge--populated? Not populated?

Texas is huge. Any list of places is going to be long. The plain text list I found months ago was poorly organized (because it had evolved over time, different editors, etc) and the sorted list made it way easier to check, compare, and find places. It is long and it could easily get longer. Texas is big and it has a long history of towns that appear and disappear.Katrazyna (talk) 00:16, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Creating the table was fine. As far as the other lists you mention above, duplication like that exists with other states also. Wikipedia prefers citing sources, which I did, and that added to the size. We should concentrate on taking care of this one, and let the others take care of whatever lists they were involved in. — Maile (talk) 00:56, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

That makes sense. However, no one is actively editing the list of unincorporated communities. That list still has a lot of overlap with this list so we are still duplicating all the work of maintaining two overlapping lists--ie sources for both list, updates for both lists. Inevitably that leads to the two lists contradicting each other. Confusing and unhelpful for wikipedia users. What purpose does it serve having duplicate lists that end up not matching?Katrazyna (talk) 01:29, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Someone should create a humorous article, " ... Eh ... whadda ya gonna do? ... that's Wikipedia." There's no overall one project, or any really active state projects, that oversees duplication of anything. That's just the way it goes at Wikipedia. As long as the duplication does not have the exact name as the one it duplicates, chances are it's created in a different time period by different editors, and nobody coordinates such things. — Maile (talk) 01:40, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Permission to remove places that reasonably could be listed in Unincorporated Communities

Let me ask this from the other side. Can I move all the current, populated places from this list to the List of unincorporated communities in Texas? It would make this one shorter, more manageable, and easier to read. It would also be more accurate.Katrazyna (talk) 01:53, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

I can start with the above mentioned Zuehl, Texas, Luckenbach, Texas, Allamoore, Texas, Alum, Texas, and Adkins, Texas. If they are on the other list there is no reason they need to be here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Katrazyna (talk • contribs) 03:20, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

I keep waiting for others to join in, but I guess it's just me. First of all, "unincorporated" is not the same definition as a ghost town. It is acceptable for a town to be on multiple lists. The number of listings here is not the problem - it's the table formatting that's hogging the space. I personally prefer the table, but I think we have to let it go, in order to allow all viewers to access this page.

I've gone over this list with a fine-toothed comb, hauling out every reliable source I could find in Texas, including the Handbook of Texas, the Texas Atlas, the Texas Almanac, other reliable sources. My perception of a ghost town was a "vanished" community, or an area where it's currently void of residents. But that's not necessarily the definition. Luckenbach was the first one I removed, because it's on privately-held property and run as a tourist attraction. There were others I removed that seemed obvious to me. I ended up adding them all back. Populations drift away or vanish into thin area, and in another era, other populations come along. Gruene in Comal County is a prime example of that. If a reliable source says an area is a ghost town, we go with the reliable source. There are a small handful I have not yet found a source for - but that doesn't mean a source doesn't exist somewhere. — Maile (talk) 11:23, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

And I just added three more sourced ghost towns in Duval County. The list will continue to grow as time goes on. — Maile (talk) 12:54, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Maile66, thank you for the work you are doing on this list. Thank you. You have gone over this list very thoroughly, it needed it. I think you are misunderstanding my comments. I am agreeing with you. Ghost towns are not unincorporated communities. These things are different things.

Populated places that are *not ghost towns* but also *not legally incorporated* (functioning, current government according to the laws of the state) are *unincorporated communities*. So...in the example of Gruene, it *was* a "ghost town" according to a reliable source back in 1950. If the article had been written at that time, it would belong on the ghost town list. In 1974, they repopulated the town and started a current population. If the article had existed at the time, it would be eligible to be moved from "ghost towns" to the "unincorporated communities" list. Places change. Their status as corporated, unincorporated, and abandoned can and do change. That's one of the reasons we update these articles and lists. I was hoping that Ohnoitsjamie would chime in. I think it was alarming to delete so many places from this ghost town list without having them reappear on the either the corporated or unincorporated lists, but I can't be sure without them adding that clarification.

Places, ideally, should be on at least one list, and hopefully on no more than one list. Because we cannot always agree on a places status as abandoned or not abandoned, there is and has been overlap between the ghost town and unincorporated communitites lists. That is probably unavoidable...My point is that the overlap can and should be minimal. If Gruene belongs on the other list (and I agree that it does) then there is no reason for it to be here, *because it is not a ghost town*.Katrazyna (talk) 19:01, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Run your argument past the state of Texas: "An estimated population of seventy-five in the 1930s had dispersed by 1950, leaving the once thriving community a ghost town."

Exactly! Hence in 1950=Ghost town.

Then! The same sources says, "Gruene began a revival in the 1970s..." So in 1970s=Unincorporated Community.

Places change over time. They belong in the correct list for their current condition. And when they change, they need to be updated by removal from the previous list and addition to the new list.Katrazyna (talk) 00:44, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

References