Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biddles Corner, Delaware

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. – bradv^🍁 16:54, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Biddles Corner, Delaware[edit]

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Obviously the toll plaza got its name from this place, and to the east a short ways stands the Liston Range Rear Light, the couple of houses between it and the road being the former keepers' dwellings. There's also a barn in the vcinity that shows up in HABS/HAER. That said, I can find no evidence that this was more than a crossroads whose name gets used as a reference point for other things, so I'm not seeing the notability. Mangoe (talk) 22:15, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 07:40, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Delaware-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 07:40, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Newspaper and map searches show that this was never anything more than a named crossroad. –dlthewave ☎ 20:24, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Newspaper articles confirm this was more than just a named crossroad. It's been possible for me to expand this article significantly, using newspaper sources from the 1800s, as well as a number of history books, including The History of Delaware. The Retirement Barn, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in Biddles Corner; Biddle House, also on the NRHP in Biddles Corner; and other historic structures are in Biddles Corner, which is listed as a settlement in the USGS 1966, USGS 1967, Delaware Place Names, and GNIS. While GNIS could be wrong, the probability that all these others are wrong is unlikely, and doing some WP:OR, we can see twelve houses on Google Maps. As a settlement is a populated place, WP:NPLACE applies: "Cities and villages anywhere in the world are generally kept, regardless of size or length of existence, as long as that existence can be verified through a reliable source." Firsfron of Ronchester 23:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, GNIS cites Delaware Place Names and the two USGS sources are exact reprints of it (note the matching page numbers and scroll up to see identical title pages), so they're either all right or all wrong. These place names books are usually just copied from maps which don't clearly distinguish between communities and crossroads. As for the NHRP listed locations, the Vandergrift-Biddle House is the only one that's actually at Biddles Corner. The other listings merely mention it in passing as a landmark (near Biddles Corner, 1.8 miles from Biddles Corner) if at all, never in the context of a community. I recommend removing them per WP:COATRACK. –dlthewave ☎ 03:01, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Having been over Delaware Place Names a lot in this, my reading is that when it says a place isn't a settlement, the description it gives is as a rule accurate, but places it calls "settlements" often lack much other support for that assertion. They define "settlement" to mean "a populated place with a clustered population of less than 100 persons", and they do distinguish this from a "community" having a dispersed population, but given that they don't give populations for any "settlement" we've discussed, I have to figure that they looked and saw a place that looked like it couldn't have much population, rather than that they knew how many people lived there. Mangoe (talk) 04:56, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Mondamon Farm Barrack is reliably sourced to the Library of Congress website. The Liston Range Rear Light is reliably sourced to the Library of Congress website. The Retirement Barn is reliably sourced to the Library of Congress website. The US Geological Survey has stated that Biddles Corner is a settlement, Delaware Place Names has stated it is a settlement, and because we can look at Google Maps, we can see there is a settlement there, although small. Something quite similar happened during the AFD discussion for Redden, Delaware (which was kept), where you were removing sourced content with the edit summary Not located in Redden. But independent sources state McColley's Chapel is in Redden "a member of McColley's Chapel in Redden""Redden M.E. Church, Redden", "McColley's Methodist Church, Redden, Delaware". Firsfron of Ronchester 05:20, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"settlement" is still not a basis for notability when it's nothing more than a few scattered buildings – that can fall under GEOLAND#2. Redden had a recorded population and a post office, so poor comparison. Reywas92^Talk 13:50, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The presupposition that a geographic community needs to be a "cluster" is misguided. Historical Rural areas (and their subsequent suburban sprawl) do not have to have an urban density to be a settlement with a name and identity, so the intended derogatory "scattered" is highly subjective opinion not cited or supported. Djflem (talk) 19:40, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What I really intend to be derogatory is "a few". I'm damn well aware of how scattered many rural areas are and that there are absolutely notable non-clustered areas that have a coherent community identity, but here we have a mere single interesection with no more than a handful of buildings owned by the Biddles and their successors, a "settlement" by definition perhaps, but still nothing whatsoever providing significant coverage of it being a notable community beyond just a location at the crossroads. Reywas92^Talk 20:48, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The other problem here is this game of telephone: DPN says "settlement", for which they give a specific definition; GNIS says "populated place", which has its own definition; we turn this into "unincorporated community". The "presupposition that a geographic community needs to be a 'cluster'" is what the original source says about this place; in the few cases where we have accepted the existence of dispersed rural communities, the sources said that outright, but here, that is in contradiction to the only source we really have. The easiest solution to resolving the various references is that it is a crossroads by the Biddle farm but a larger rural community is something none of the soruces support. Mangoe (talk) 21:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The HABS paperwork for both barns says "Biddles Corner Vicinity" on the very first page; the HAER paperwork on the lighthouse gets to the second page before describing its location as "Near Biddles Corner". None of the three helps to establish Biddles Corner as a settlement in its own right. Mangoe (talk) 21:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete NPLACE lists common outcomes but is not a guideline and doesn't "apply" as a directive. Searching newspapers.com bring several results as a location (including being the site of the toll plaza), but none with details as a community or with substantive coverage establishing notability. It's certainly correlated that the Biddle House is at Biddle's Corner, but not indicative that the small handful of homes in the vicinity is a distinctly notable community for which geoland1 applies. The History of the State of Delaware says "The 179 acres patented to Leonard Vandegrift now called the Biddle's Corner Farm...", perhaps useful for Biddle House (St. Georges, Delaware) as the farm's homestead but worthless here. In the article you wrote "The Craven House, in Biddles Corner, was built in the mid-19th century", yet the book actually says "Craven House, Biddles Corner vicinity", so where did this preposition come from??? The full context for the 1884 line mentioning the Fort Penn Grange is "Eli Biddle has built a large granary near here. The Fort Penn Grange is building a large hall at Biddle's Corner" (emphasis added). Also Birds Corner and Boyds Corner are marked on the topo map, bottom left, but this isn't, and all three were appropriately removed from the latest topo. If kept, this should be clear that this, like many other corners, is just that – an intersection used as a location for places in the unincorporated vicinity – not with the misleading "is an unincorporated community". Reywas92^Talk 04:17, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
comment The Chesdel Restaurant sat just south of this corner on US 13 for 38 years, but neither its website nor this article from the News Journal on its closure mention Biddles Corner. Mangoe (talk) 05:13, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And as a comment on taking those prepositions too seriously: this article from the Philly CBS affiliate claims that the restaurant was "in Middletown". It most certainly was not; the location is actually quite a bit closer to St. Georges than to Middletown, which is some six miles to the SW, but it has a Middletown postal address, so.... Mangoe (talk) 05:20, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per this expansion; whether or not there currently exists a bustling settlement at the location in 2021, it seems uncontroversial that a lot of stuff has been recorded as going down at a "Biddles Corner" at some point in the history of the universe; if nothing else, this ought to be kept. Beyond that, I have no horse in the race of whether it's referred to as an arcology, metropolis, unincorporated community, place name, crossroads, shit on a shingle, etc. jp×g 06:33, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's no different from any random street or intersection in a city near which things happened or historic buildings are situated. Being outside an incorporated city doesn't make this a notable place when there's no coverage about the place itself. Reywas92^Talk 13:42, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Madison Avenue up for deletion? It's a grey zone.Djflem (talk) 19:46, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Crap comparison and you know it. Better one might be Madison Avenue and 52rd Street since we do in fact have an article on U.S. Route 13 in Delaware that's part of this intersection. Moreover, we don't call everyone who lives on Madison Avenue a community because it's a location mentioned as where things are situated at or near. U.S._Route_13_in_Delaware#New_Castle_County could mention the historic buildings on the route here perhaps.

Keep a historical community. Djflem (talk) 19:40, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- The community this was a part of would appear to be Saint Georges, Delaware or the St. George's Hundred, Delaware. Sure, a couple farms and homesteads might be a community of neighbors, but that doesn't make it notable. The NRHP nomination forms for Retirement Farm, Biddle House, and Monamon Farm here mention that, not the Corner. Reywas92^Talk 20:48, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Notable community, article has been improved. May have been a part of the St. George's Hundred but was its own community, however small, with its own history. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 18:12, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.