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In the United States, a single geographic point can have multiple official place names, each of which is administered by a separate public agency. The federal agencies that determine place names are the United States Postal Service, United States Census Bureau and United States Geological Survey.
It is critical to note that only incorporated places have definitive place names and often even they have naming conflicts. See the article on Zip Code for examples. Unfortunately, unincorporated places do not have definitive place names. Tornado is an excellent example of this. The United States Census Bureau calls Tornado the Upper Falls Census Designated Place. The United States Postal Service calls the community both Tornado and Upper Falls. The United States--West Virginian (talk)05:57, 3 January 2022 (UTC) Geological Survey also gives Tornado the names Andrews Heights, Big Bend, Upper Falls and Upper Falls of Coal River and this is the most definitive source available! It must be noted that it is very routine for these official authorities to overlap and conflict with each other. Errors resulting from lack of knowledge and flaws in work flow, data and decision making at every level of government also play a significant role in creating confusion. Many other societies with different priorities devote the necessary resources to domestic infrastructure that allows them to avoid this kind of chaos.[reply]
The current state of this article reflects incremental updates that have not been maintained, poorly researched sources that conflict with United States Government official records and overall neglect. As a result, it is outdated, inaccurate, very conflicting and extremely confusing!
It is vital to recognize here that the multidisciplinary approach required to understand place names in the United States is at times very esoteric.
I will attempt to delineate the disparate names and agencies in this article into a cohesive whole that makes sense. Anyone reading this, please realize that creating order in the midst of chaos is a daunting task.
Before reactively clicking Undo, please post your comments here so that the Wikipedia community can reach consensus on the content of this article.Thpn (talk) 18:41, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Upper Falls, West Virginia is a new census designated place (CDP) created by the United States Census Bureau for the 2010 Census. It subsumes the Tornado, West Virginia CDP. I intend to move the content relating to Upper Falls that now appears at the Tornado, West Virginia article here. This should happen after 2011 January, when the 2010 Census results are published and the article here has been created. Thpn (talk) 22:19, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It has been suggested that Tornado, West Virginia be merged into this article or section.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
What's to discuss? There's no relevant content at the article for Tornado, West Virginia. Just redirect that article to this one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.15.15.18 (talk) 16:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The sooner this is done, the better. It's a rather unusual development for a post office to exist that has no equivalent place name. The confusion surrounding the official status of Tornado is just perpetuated by the existence of the article for Tornado. When the Tornado Post Office is closed, there will be nothing left named Tornado and the article for Tornado, West Virginia will have to be disposed of in some manner. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.15.40.21 (talk) 11:33, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have merged all the relevant content from the Tornado, West Virginia article into the Upper Falls, West Virginia article. The only content remaining in the Tornado, West Virginia article that hasn't been merged is both undocumented and impossible to document. It should, therefore, not be merged anyway. Since I am the original author of all the unique content in both articles and have licensed each separately, no additional attribution from the old article to the new one is necessary. All that's left to do is to redirect Tornado, West Virginia to Upper Falls, West Virginia and remove Tornado from Template:Kanawha County, West Virginia.Thpn (talk) 17:48, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is important to note that Tornado is not a ghost town. Officially, no locality named Tornado ever existed. The United States Geological Survey requires that their Geographic Names Information System database never remove an entry. This is documented in the Wikipedia article titled "Geographic Names Information System." Officially, Tornado "was determined to be an error of compilation during Phase II data collection for West Virginia, and should have been entered as a variant of Upper Falls at the time." See http://tornadowva.blog.com/ for reference. I will send the original email making this announcement to anyone who requests it from upperfalls at gmail dot com. The Tornado Census Designated Place (GNIS Feature ID 2390396) likewise was an "Obsolete or Incorrect Name: Deleted feature that was a non-governmental entity." In other words, a mistake. Officially, Tornado was never anything but a "variant" name for Upper Falls. This is why the appropriate course of action regarding the article titled "Tornado, West Virginia" is to merge it into this one.Thpn (talk) 23:13, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not only is there a consensus among federal agencies that the populated place named Tornado never existed and the short-lived census designated place named Tornado should never have been created, but this consensus is shared by all state and local government agencies as well. The United States Board on Geographic Names is the final arbiter in all issues related to geographic names in the United States and their definitive opinion is that Tornado was only ever a variant name for Upper Falls. Thus, my merger of the Tornado, West Virginia article here will only include references to the Tornado Post Office and not the Tornado CDP, which was created in error. It should be noted that the Tornado CDP had most of its population in Lincoln County, while the Upper Falls CDP is contained completely within Kanawha County. Therefore, no comparisons between the two old and new census designated places are even possible, as their geographic overlap was relatively tiny. The Tornado CDP was ill-conceived, ill-planned and ill-executed and is now universally acknowledged as such, including by those who did it!Thpn (talk) 20:45, 7 December 2011 (UTC) (I previously corrected my edit regarding the old CDP extending into Lincoln County and am now documenting that correction.)18:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Since I've been asked to comment on this merge proposal, here's my two cents. It does appear that Upper Falls and Tornado are the same place (the only GNIS listing for a populated place named Tornado is as an alternate name for Upper Falls, and Tornado Census Designated Place is an alternated name for the Upper Falls CDP), so the two pages should be merged as Upper Falls. However, the merged article should mention at least the history of the Tornado CDP as well as the post office. As I mentioned before, the GNIS says "Tornado Census Designated Place" is an alternate name for the Upper Falls Census Designated Place. I also compared the U.S. Census Bureau's reference maps of Tornado in 2000 and Upper Falls in 2010, and all of Tornado is now part of Upper Falls (though the Tornado CDP was much smaller). I can't find any evidence that the Tornado CDP was even partly, much less mostly, in Lincoln County; the Census Bureau's map has it in Kanawha County. It seems like Tornado is just a post office name for Upper Falls that isn't used as much locally; it's unreferenced, but the explanation in Tornado, West Virginia#History of the name would explain a lot if it's true. TheCatalyst31Reaction•Creation06:14, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Since the Tornado Census Designated Place is marked "(historical)" I thought it might be helpful to provide the United States Geological Survey definition of the term, from http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=gnispq:10 It is: "A feature with '(historical)' following the name no longer exists and is no longer visible on the landscape. Examples: a dried up lake, a destroyed building, a hill leveled by mining. The term makes no reference to the age, size, population, use, or any other aspect of the feature. A ghost town, for example, is not a historical feature if it is still visible. Valid features are never removed from the database, but become historical if they no longer exist." So, Tornado IS NOT a ghost town. It no longer exists. Or, if you read the e-mail linked above, it was an error in the first place. So, why does Tornado have a Wikipedia article?Thpn (talk) 02:57, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Upper Falls currently contains only three populated places. They are Ferrell, River Bend and Upper Falls. I submitted six new populated places to the United States Geological Survey, which have been approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names for inclusion in the Geographic Names Information System. I am currently awaiting the administrative addition of these new populated places. When this is complete, I will list them in the introduction of this article. For reference, this sentence will read: "The Upper Falls CDP contains the populated places of Angel Fork, Browns Creek, Chestnut Point, Dry Ridge, Ferrell, Gore Addition, Indian Head, River Bend and, of course, Upper Falls."Thpn (talk) 15:48, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am adding the populated places of Falls Creek and Smith Creek to this list and modifying Gore Addition to become Gore, with Gore Addition as a variant name. Therefore, when the administrative matters are concluded, the sentence to be added to the introduction of this article will read: "The Upper Falls CDP contains the populated places of Angel Fork, Browns Creek, Chestnut Point, Dry Ridge, Falls Creek, Ferrell, Gore, Indian Head, River Bend, Smith Creek and of course, Upper Falls."Thpn (talk) 21:39, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Two more populated places were added, Coal River and Thomas Branch with the variant name Thomas Hollow. So, the sentence to be added to the introduction will finally read: "The Upper Falls CDP contains the populated places of Angel Fork, Browns Creek, Chestnut Point, Coal River, Dry Ridge, Falls Creek, Ferrell, Gore, Indian Head, River Bend, Smith Creek, Thomas Branch and of course, Upper Falls." Thpn (talk) 22:15, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that these populated places were never added to GNIS. This list is valuable, however, in that it documents the functional populated places within the Upper Falls Census Designated Place. Thpn (talk) 17:25, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
