Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leavitt, California

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. Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:59, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Leavitt, California[edit]

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Here we have a couple of problems, because what the topos show is, yes, yet another siding on the ex-Nevada-California-Oregon Railway line, with a very loose scattering of buildings around it, mostly houses which are still there. The article hints at problem number one, because mostly it's not about Leavitt the place, but about Leavitt the person, and indeed he and his irrigation company so dominate the search results that it is al most impossible to get past them. But banging on it several ways, I did find a few references to Leavitt station in the usual railroad regulatory material. Problem number two, however, is what does not appear in the article, because immediately adjacent to it is a major prison complex; indeed, you pretty much have to drive through this Leavitt to get to the High Desert State Prison. But the entire complex is within the Susanville city limits as a discontinuous piece, and nothing I've seen admits that this Leavitt sits right next to it. So the only solid evidence of Leavitt as a commmunity is me looking down and seeing a loose cluster of houses. Did anyone ever think of this as its own town? I can't tell. Mangoe (talk) 01:54, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. ~ Amkgp 💬 04:27, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:02, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete For what it's worth, the prison complex opened in 1995 and isn't relevant to any historical settlement that could have existed here. The cited source doesn't support the existence of a town named after B.H. Leavitt; that leaves us with a place that was named after the first postmaster when a post office was established.

The name does appear on the 1954 topo, which also shows a rail siding and a few buildings. Without further evidence of a real settlement, I would chalk this up as another minor rail siding/station where people went to pick up their mail. –dlthewave ☎ 18:17, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As something of a meta-comment on the above: for a lot of rural rail locations the analysis is easy because there is just nothing at all after the couple of railroad buildings went away, but in cases where there are a few houses beyond just a farm's outbuildings, it's difficult to determine to what extent anyone ever thought of the place as a settlement as opposed to just a general locale that extended beyond the immediate buildings, and for that matter, the degree to which it is still thought of as a place. Semi-rural areas can be especially bad because things tend to blur together without civil boundaries. The phrase "unincorporated community" verges on weasel words, tending to imply a town and the various typical attributes thereof (especially commercial establishments) when it just means a bunch of houses whose occupants may not think of themselves as living in that place.

That's really what it comes down to in this case: there are a bunch of houses there, each with its own driveway down to on or the other main road, which sit around a place where a railroad stop with a name once was, now sitting next to a complex which as single buildings which probably house more residents than all those houses put together, with not a shop or gas station or the like in sight. Is it a "community" now? I can find no evidence of that. Back before the prison, did people living there think of themselves as being in "Leavitt"? I can't tell that either. Perhaps they did, and perhaps they still do; but nobody seems to have talked about it. Mangoe (talk) 19:27, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This one's a little confusing. The article itself is a bit of a mess (it claims two different origins for the town's name without even trying to reconcile that), and aside from the post office, the place at the coordinates doesn't seem to have much of a history as a community. That being said, if you |look just south of there, there's a community called Leavitt Lake. That community doesn't have its own entry in the GNIS, but it has pretty extensive newspaper coverage (see [1] and [2]). If Leavitt and Leavitt Lake are separate, we probably shouldn't keep the Leavitt article, but if they're the same community by a different name (or at least closely related) then we should keep it. I'd lean toward assuming they're not the same, if only because they have different names and there's no proof they are, but the names are so similar that I don't want to rule it out. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 01:14, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Leavitt Lake is, not too surprisingly, next to Lake Leavitt, a reservoir established by Guess Who. The local school system has a website with some info on local history, and here is what they say about "Clinton":

In the early 1900's, the town of Clinton existed where the current community of Leavitt Lake is located. It was first called Buggytown, then Riverside, and finally Clinton when the post office was established in 1896. The post office was closed in 1915. It was named for Clinton, Maine, the hometown of Benjamin Hanson Leavitt, the area's prominent citizen. In 1973, the area was renamed Leavitt Lake when construction of the houses there began.

This is not entirely supported by topos or GNIS, neither of which has heard of this Clinton; but the topos show a "Riverside School" at the spot, before the houses appear. So I'm not sure what to think. It's pretty clear that the Leavitt community of the article is not connected to the Leavitt Lake development/neighborhood except through the common name element and a certain degree of proximity. Mangoe (talk) 03:51, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Appears to be/have been an actual settlement, however small. More than a rail siding, as it had a post office which -in my view -entails legal recognition. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 02:47, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Post offices are routine features of railroad stations in the US. It doesn't indicate that the station was part of a larger settlement. Mangoe (talk) 03:21, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

KEEP I've added a little history and citation that clears up some of the history; it was a town formed by a person. If not keep, at least Merge with an article on the township where it is located. Goldenrowley (talk) 19:23, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

...which brings us back to Purdy's site and the reliability thereof. I would agree that if we take him as reliable, we've established this as a settlement. Mangoe (talk) 19:47, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 18:50, 17 July 2020 (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.