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Manganese, Minnesota

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This article is about Manganese, Minnesota, one of 7 communities incorporated as a result of the the discovery of the Cuyuna Iron Range in Minnesota, and the only one abandoned, existing from 1911 when it was platted by the Duluth Land and Timber Company until it's official dissolution in 1961. After 4 years research, I've ammased a lot of time and resources obtaining information regarding the veracity of the community. Ironically, this was extremely difficult, since little information exists, even though this was an incorporated community. I've listed this article for peer review because I have been working on it for the last four years before finally compiling it in the sandbox and transferring it to the main page. I have tried to assure no remaining resource was left untouched in the preparation of this article and it provides the most comprehensive information about the community in one source. The article is modeled loosely on the FA Pithole, Pennsylvania and Elcor, Minnesota, an article which I helped promote to acheive FA status. The article both reads and flows well thanks to revisions by the Wikipedia Guild of Copy Editors.

Thanks, DrGregMN (talk) 02:10, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I will take a look at the article and make some comments here. - Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 13:53, 26 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Ruhrfisch! DrGregMN (talk) 00:13, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I found a 1917 postcard from Manganese on eBay. The copyright has expired so I uploaded it on Commons. Here is the link File:Manganese, Minnesota Postcard 1917.png - Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:53, 5 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Tom (LT)

Thanks for pinging me, DrGregMN. Another interesting article, thanks for your edits to it!! I have only a few comments:

Very interesting and well-written
Suggest standardise how you refer to the town, as I note you alternate to describe it as a village ("the village was abandoned by 1960") in the lead section
Will pass GA with flying colours
No issues with images, references or prose
Sorry this is another quick review like last one. Really I think most issues are better identified in FA after this article passes GA. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:51, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Tom (LT)!

DrGregMN (talk) 04:49, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments

I see this article has been nominated for WP:GA, so I will review it with that in mind. It seems to have quite a bit of useful information, which could be better organized. I also think adding a bit of background material might help to provide context to the reader. I also will cite examples, but am not trying to be exhaustive (so if an example is cited, please check for other occurences).

Lead

My rule of thumb is that the lead should be a summary of the article, so nothing should be only present in the lead. However, the story about the discovery of the Cuyuna range (complete with St Bernard) and this being the sixth town on that range do not appear to also be repeated in the article itself (after the lead), but should be.
Similarly, the lead should mention all the major points in the article. My rule of thumb is if it is in a header or subheader, it should be at least mentioned in the lead. However, climate (for one) does not seem to be in the lead.
Per WP:CITELEAD there must be citations in the lead for direct quotations and for extraordinary claims. While the lead can be cited just like the rest of the article, since it is a summary the citations for most of the lead can just be in the body of the article. This is the approach used by one of the model articles (Pithole, Pennsylvania). While it is a style choice, I think a lead with as few refs as required reads more easily (your call).
Since no one has lived in Manganese since 1960, why is it necessary to include the area code in the info box?

Images

I would include an image in the info box (in addition to the map). Perhaps one like File:Overgrown Sidewalk Manganese Minnesota 02.jpg since it shows what the place looks like today with traces of the past (sidewalk, foundation ruins)?
There are two places where the text is sandwiched between two images - please see MOS:SANDWICH and avoid this.
I see there are some images on Commons that are not used in the article. I would include images of the town before it was abandoned (in addition to the aerial photos).
- There is the first house postcard I found and uploaded here.
- Another is the image of the school teacher with the railroad depot in the background - is there a reason not to use it near the paragraphs on the railroad and/or school? It could be cropped to show more of the depot, if desired.
The aerial photos are nice, but at the resolution at which they are displayed in the article it is difficult to see much difference between the two. In theory the images could be cropped to show just the town and streets (perhaps the buildings could be seen in the article then too). Another idea is a double image template could be used to diplay them (one on top of the other).
If there is not room for all the images, I am not sure what File:Road to Manganese, Minnesota from the Milford Mine Historic Site.jpg adds to the article. There is already another picture of two overgrown streets in what was the town, and I do not think this photo was taken in Manganese itself anyway.

History

It is clear a large amount of research and effort have been put into writing this article. Sometimes in cases like this it becomes easy to forget that other people are not as familiar with the overall story. I think this article would benefit from better organization. The two main areas for improvement I see are: 1) making sure the background material is clearer, and precedes the material on the town itself (this is providing context to the reader; and 2) making sure the story of the town is told in as straightforward a way as possible.
As one way of providing background, the Pithole article has two of the same sections *Geology", "Geography and Climate", but puts them before the History section to provide context. Another possible model article (and FA) is Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, which breifly goes into the prehistory of the region that became Lock Haven. For this article, I think it would help to go briefly into more of the history before the town was founded. Perhaps mention when settlers arrived in the area, when MN became a state and when Crow Wing County was established (not a lot of detail, but a few sentences). Then go into the Iron Range and mining, then the story from the lead about the discovery of the Cuyuna Range. I would mention the mines in the area first, so that it is clear why the town was established, and why the lots sold out so quickly.
Looking at what is already there, the organization is pretty disjointed in places. As an example, the current arrangement does not mention the reason for the name or the surrounding mines until the first 2 sentences of the 4th paragraph of the History section (and manganese is an element, though its oxides would be minerals). The 3rd sentence of the 4th paragraph is about 1920 (8 years after it was founded), then the 4th sentence starts in late WWI (1918), then skips ahead to the mine disaster in 1924 (and doesn't link to Milford Mine or mention that 41 miners were killed and only 7 survived). The next paragraph starts after the (WWI) Armistice is signed (so back to 1918), then the Great Depression starts (1929) and the train tracks are removed in 1930. For someone not familiar with the town's history, jumping back and forth in time can be quite confusing.
Another way that might work to organize things is to have paragraphs on certain topics, which are told in chronological order. If this is done, it would help to have some broad overview of the town's history from founding to dissolution, followed by individual paragraphs on certain topics. So there could be a short paragraph on the railroad (or maybe on transportation in general with the streets and local roads added in), or a paragraph on the local mines (any idea when the different local mines closed?)
Also be careful as the timeline can seem contradictory. We read after 1930 "About one house per day was moved out of town." which implies the town will soon be completely empty (if you lose 365 households each year), but in 1938 there are enough people around to start a Methodist church with several Sunday School classes worth of children, and town itself is not finally empty until nearly 20 years after that (1955).

References

Images need to have their source when uploaded, so it is not necessary to cite the course again in the article (although if the caption makes claims that need to be cited and are not repeated elsewhere in the article, then caption would need to be cited).
Be careful not to violate WP:NOR in sentences like "Had the water tower remained, it would have undoubtedly been named to the National Register of Historic Places along with the other Cuyuna Iron Range municipally-owned elevated metal water tanks.[27]". I read the NRHP listing and it does not even mention Manganese or its water tower. That said, it would be fine to say something like "In 1980, the surviving municipally-owned elevated water tanks in the Cuyuna Iron Range (in the towns of Crosby, Cuyuna, Deerwood, Ironton, and Trommald) were added to the NRHP."
It helps to look at references and see if there are things that could be added to the article. The NRHP water tower ref has a nice brief discussion of the tax structure that benefitted these communities and Manganese "During their heyday between 1910 and the mid-twenties these communities benefited tremendously from an unusual situation created by an ad valorem property tax on mining properties whose valuation was made by the State Department of Taxation and not by local assessors. This tax arrangement was created before the tremendous mining boom and resulted in huge amounts of unforeseen local revenue for communities which they could not reduce even had they so wished. As a result, great expenditures of these revenues were made on public works and improvements." [1]

General

The header "Abandonment" is OK, but could it be made clearer that the land continues to be used (the Base Camp)? Perhaps something like "Abandonment and after" or "Abandonment and later use"?
I am not sure that a detailed listing of the kinds of trash found in the ruins is encyclopedic
Watch overlinking - I assume most readers know what a decade is or understand a No Trespassing sign even without the links.
At the same time, it can be helpful to add links in refs (for example, The Henry Ford has a nice article here).

All in all this is well done and should make GA without too much additional work. If you aim for FA, then everything is gone over in much finer detail at FAC. Hope this helps. I am not watching this page, so if you have questions or want me to take a second look, please let me know on my talk page. - Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:01, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Ruhrfisch! It is obvious from the number of articles you have helped achieve FA status, and your previous working relationship with User:Brianboulton that your suggestions will propel this article in that direction (he was one of the main reviewers for Elcor, Minnesota). I will work on most of them and then have you take another look. Easy fixes:

1. The subsection Abandonment and Later Use easy to add.

2. I can certainly remove the Wikilinks decade and trespassing if you feel they are not necessary.

3. I can remove sourcing for images since they are already cited at Wikimedia Commons

4. I can also add images, and remove the sandwiching. However, I don't want the article to be more images than text.

5. I can remove the redundant citations from the lead section.

6. I can remove the area code from the info box, although this was not an issue with the FA reviewers for Elcor, Minnesota.

7. I agree about your observation regarding the Cuyuna Range water towers. Although it's not OR, it is speculation, and I like your sentence better.

The harder fixes (some of which I will try to work on, but some of these observations I will carry forward since I do not believe them to be problematic):

1. Climate in the lead section. Neither Pithole, Pennsylvania or Elcor, Minnesota have their respective climates mentioned in the lead section, so I am not sure it needs to be mentioned for Manganese, Minnesota. Elcor, Minnesota was originally structured similar to Pithole, Pennsylvania, but the FA reviewers for that article thought it made more sense to list Geology and Climate after History, and I have maintained that order here.

2. I mention the discovery of the Cuyuna Range in the lead section as a way to dispense with the history of the region similar to the discovery of the Mesabi Range by the Merritt brothers in the Elcor article. I can certainly expand this to include the founding of Minnesota and the establishment of Crow Wing county if you feel it's relevant.

3. I also included relevant information in the lead section that does not conveniently fit elsewhere in the article. This was done with Elcor, Minnesota as well, with regard to it being an unincorporated community and never a neighborhood proper of Gilbert, although the people of Elcor were included with those of Gilbert in the Census. This is not mentioned again in the body of the article.

4. You are not the first person to mention that the etymology for Manganese is not mentioned until the mines are discussed in the body of the article, which is why I mention it in the lead section. It seems to be a recurring issue, so I will try to find a better way to address it.

5. With regard to the items left behind, the same appears in the Elcor article. It is information that can be cited, and paints a picture for the reader.

6. I have tried to keep the prose in chronological order while keeping similar topics confined to one paragraph:

Manganese was platted in 1911 starts the first paragraph. Lots were sold and settlement occurred a year later, with incorporation a year after that, but these topics in my mind belong together.
Starting paragraph two, the post office was established in 1912 (and remained in operation until 1924). Sidewalks and curbing were installed, and the depot and Fitger hotel constructed in 1914. In 1919, waterworks project completed.
Paragraph six states in 1920, mine payrolls topped out at $160,000. Yes, in the following sentence the mine production during WWI is cited, so this is easily fixed by moving the sentence. In 1924, the Milford mine disaster occurred. While I could expound upon the Milford mine disaster, I'm not sure it would be relevant to this article (it would be relevant to expound upon it in the article Milford Mine, something I may do in the future). Milford is is already linked in the sentence which lists the rest of the mines; I make it a practice to link at the first mention in an article.
Paragraph seven, the Soo Line tore up the track in 1930. My copy editor User:Jonesey95 has already made some clarification to this paragraph, so it now states about one house a day was moved out of town.
Final paragraph, establishment of Methodist church in 1938.

I will do what I can, with Jonesey's help, to clarify this information so it doesn't seem so disjointed to the reader, but I would argue it is chronologically correct.

Please DO feel free to follow this page, as I will certainly want your opinion before moving forward with FA consideration!

Thank you again User:Ruhrfisch for your very useful comments and criticisms! DrGregMN (talk) 20:34, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

DrGregMN response

Hello, Ruhrfisch! All of your suggestions are helpful! I have made most of your suggested revisions. Please feel free have yet another look at Manganese, Minnesota, and see my comments below:

Ruhrfisch response It looks a lot better, though it still has room for improvement. Here are some more suggestions, hope they help.

Lead: The current lead is three paragraphs, which is fine for an article of this length. However, one of out of three paragraphs is the story of the discovery of the Cayuna Range, none of which is repeated in the body of the article itself. The information on it not being a "company town" and the names of the nearby lakes are also only in the lead (and not repeated that I can see in the article itself). According to WP:LEAD, "As in the body of the article itself, the emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources. Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." So this fails WP:LEAD in two ways - 1) significant information is only in the lead, AND 2) there is a much greater emphasis on this info (discovery of the Cayuna Range) than there is in the article itself. I know you keep saying that the Elcor article has a different lead, but the current version of this article does not follow the MOS / WP:LEAD.

The discovery of the Cuyuna Range has been moved to the history section per your suggestion. However, I will say in reviewing the ghost town FA Pithole, Pennsylvania that it also does not follow the MOS/ WP:LEAD. There is no mention of the "Geology" or "Geography and Climate" sections in the lead (so there seems to be some latitude in how the FA reviewers approach the lead section). I have also removed the wording that Manganese was not a company town.

The other thing I like to do with the lead is to make sure it is a good summary of the rest of the article. One way to do that is to look at each named section or subsection and see if it is somehow at least touched on in the lead. I don't really see anything from the "Geology" or "Geography and Climate" sections in the lead currently. As Geography & Climate suggestions, I might include a brief description of the street grid as laid out (3 N-S and 5 E-W streets) and perhaps the tidbit that the combination of spring rains and unpaved clay streets played a role in the town's abandonment. Adding the lake names to the body would also help (though they are probably OK in just the lead). From Geology, I would move the current second pargraph to the body and summarize it in the lead, and perhaps include a sentence on uses of Mn and some way of pointing outthat "the Trommald formation and adjacent Emily district are the largest resource of manganese in the United States". The recent development of the Manganese Base Camp on the town's site seems worth a sentence in the lead too.

I have taken your suggestions with regard to briefly describing the street grid and clay streets from the "Geography and Climate" section, as well as the Trommald formation and Emily district from the "Geology" section, and summarized them in the lead. I've also included a sentence about Manganese Base Camp (without specifically mentioning Manganese Base Camp). I have left mention of the lakes in the lead section only.

I think this still could use a good copy edit before FAC. In addition to the issues mentioned above, 1960 is mentioned three times in the lead, which seems a bit much (two of these mentions are of the abandonment in 1960 - do both need to be in the lead)? Since the article makes clear the town was formally dissolved in 1961, perhaps that could be mentioned in the lead (in place of one of the "1960" mentions). I would also swap these two sentences in the first paragraph: "After its formal dissolution, Manganese was absorbed by Wolford Township; the former town site is located between Coles Lake and Flynn Lake. First appearing in the U.S. Census of 1920 with an already dwindling population of 183,[2] the village was abandoned by 1960.[3]"

I have removed one of the mentions of the year 1960, and changed it to the formal dissolution date of 1961. However, I have left the sentence structure intact. One of the things I learned from Brian Boulton is that every paragraph (even in the lead section) should end with a citation (in fact, Brian Boulton also stated that nothing significant in an article should be left uncited...more about that later).

History: I like the new background paragraph at the start of History, and would add that Minnesota became a state in 1858 in the first paragraph. As mentioned I would move the Cayuna Range meterial here as the second paragraph. If you know the founding date of any of the area mines (especially any that predate the town of Manganese), I would add that here too - see WP:PCR.

Minnesota statehood added. Mines were also moved up front along with the founding dates for the Algoma, Gloria, Preston, Merritt, Milford mines and ownership. I have a call in to the Cuyuna Iron Range Heritage Network asking if they can if they can narrow the date for the construction of the school well by the WPA. I do not have this information, nor do any of my sources contain it. The Minnesota Historical Society may have this information, but they are still closed due to the COVID pandemic.

The section named "Establishment" should probably be renamed - "Establishment and Growth" perhaps, or "Establishment and Community"? By the way, I know what it means for a town to be platted amd incorporated, but is there a legal definition (or wikilink or even a Wiktionary link) for being "established"?

Done. Their is no Wiktionary link for community "Establishment", but in Googling the difference between establishement and incorporation, the website Wikidiff (not an "official" Wiki page) states establishment is founded or settled, while incorporation is a legal entity. https://wikidiff.com/incorporated/establishment. Would you prefer the term "settlement" or "founded" as opposed to "establishment"?

When were the Soo Line depot and Fitger Hotel built? The article implies around 1914, but does not say explicitly. The WPA only existed from 1935 to 1943, so that gives some time frame for the well at the school.

Both were built in 1914. I have changed the sentence structure to more accurately reflect this. See my previous comment about the WPA.

My understanding is the ad valorem tax revenues came from the mines - if this is correct, I would add it to make the source of revenue clearer.

Done, with reference.

The paragraph on the Soo Line starts shortly after Adams' ore discovery (ca. 1903). Would it make sense to have the depot sentence (1914?) here too (put all the railroad material in one paragraph)? I also wonder if the Henry Ford material might read better if the sentences were switched - talk about the certain thing first, then the (sourced) speculation (i.e. Henry Ford's personal rail car was seen parked on the Manganese siding, which led to rumors that...)

Done. All of the Soo Line material is now contained in a single paragraph. Also, changed "rumor" to "speculation".

How far away was the Milford mine? The NRHP ref for the Milford Mine district says "On the day of the Milford Mine Disaster, Annie (Minerich) Tomac walked this rail grade from Manganese to the mine to check on her husband, Mike Tomac, who was killed in the cave-in (Aulie 1994:48)." (page 77 of current ref 69)

Done. About 1.9 miles. Information has been added to the appropriate paragraph in "Geography and Climate".

I tweaked the images in Establishment - usual pattern is right, then left (alternating). Would be nice if there were some image for the Geology section. Perhaps there is a photo of some of the ore? Or of a nearby mine back in the day? What about a map - perhaps File:Cuyuna Iron Range general geology.PNG or File:Iron Ranges.jpg?

Done. I have uploaded an image of one of the Cuyuna Lakes Mountain Bike trails running by a waste rock stockpile.

The word "Ironically" in the water towers sentence might still be seen as violating WP:NPOV (as the source makes no mention of Manganese or its water tower).

I'm going to leave it for now. If it becomes an issue when the article is submitted for FAC, I will remove it. It is with a sense of irony that the Manganese water tower was scrapped before the remaining Cuyuna Range municipal water towers were named to the NRHP. However, I don't plan on submitting for FAC anytime soon. Getting back to Brian Boulton's advice on citations, if there is no web source, newpaper citations must contain a page number. I have five newspaper citations without page numbers and no web source; I will have to obtain the page numbers from microfilm at the Minnesota Historical Society, again, which is closed due to the COVID pandemic. There is also a page number from a journal that needs to be sourced. I am also slightly concerned that some of the information sourced from the Cuyuna Iron Range Heritage Network files is "annoymous". Although there is a Wikipedia Template:Cite archive, I'm not sure how well annoymous sources will go over in an FA review (I would argue very stongly, however). Here's a good example: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manganese_Lots.jpg. There are also two photographs in the article requiring attribution; I have the necessary permissions.

Hope this helps, - Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:45, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I will ask Jonesey95 to do another copy edit. Thank you again, Ruhrfisch! DrGregMN (talk) 02:12, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Last look

I reread the article and like all the changes made. I mostly looked at changes made, did not do a close read for copyediting. I moved the depot photo up a bit, so it lines up with the railroad paragraph better (I am reading this on a lap top, depending on your device / screen, YMMV). I have a few suggestions remaining:

I think where you mention "stockpiles" of ore, you probably mean either tailings or perhaps spoil tips (though in the bike trail photo they look too small to be a spoil tip)
If there is a year for the establishment of the rail trail, I would mention it. Even if it is "since the 1990s" (just the decade). (I like the new photo a lot)
Geology section still has room for a map image of the Iron or Cuyuna range - just sayin' ... ;-)
I have frequently seen references where the author name is simply omitted if there is no author listed (instead of using "Anonymous"). Your call.

Nicely done! - Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:31, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Let me know when this does make it to FAC.