Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in West Virginia

Why are some of the blue links italicized?

And some aren't? Just curious. --Ebyabe 18:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. --Ebyabe 19:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Several Ohio County sites removed

I noticed that several of the sites I have listed on List of historic sites in Ohio County, West Virginia were removed from your page. Were these sites removed from the NRHP? Mphamilton 05:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Which ones? --Ebyabe 13:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Namely residences located outside of Wheeling in Triadelphia, Valley Grove, and Mount Echo. Mphamilton 02:04, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Regions of West Virginia

I suggest that the county list-articles of counties near to one another be merged into regional groupings, so that readers and editors can review the nearby NRHP listings together. The linked "map of all coordinates" will then show one coherent map for the region.

I don't care about which specific partition of the state is used, but here's how one partition would work: Using MagazineUSA.com's partition, there would be nine groupings:

1. Eastern Panhandle - 209 NRHPs in 3 counties
2. Hatfield-McCoy Mountains - 22 NRHPs in 5 counties
3. Metro Valley - 139 NRHPs in 4 counties
4. Mid-Ohio Valley - 75 NRHPs in 7 counties
5. Mountain Lakes - 60 NRHPs in 7 counties
6. Mountaineer Country - 133 in 7 counties
7. New River/Greenbrier Valley - 147 in 8
8. Northern Panhandle - 107 in 6
9. Potomac Highlands - 148 in 8

All nine would be reasonable sized groupings, page-size-wise. The system would work exactly the same, just when one selected a given county from the list one would be brought to that county's list-table amidst a regional page, and the "map of all coordinates" would work well showing a larger, coherent area instead of showing just one county's NRHP locations.

Here's how the state-wide list-article table would appear, more or less, with a sortable column for "region":

	County	# of Sites	Region	Region 2
1	Barbour	10	Mountaineer Country	Mountaineer Country
2	Berkeley	119	Eastern Panhandle	Eastern Panhandle
3	Boone	4	Metro Valley	Metro Valley
4	Braxton	10	Mountain Lakes	Mountain Lakes
5	Brooke	23	Northern Panhandle	Northern Panhandle
6	Cabell	39	Metro Valley	Metro Valley
7	Calhoun	1	Mid-Ohio Valley	Mid-Ohio Valley
8	Clay	1	Mountain Lakes	Mountain Lakes
9	Doddridge	9	Mountaineer Country	Mountaineer Country
10	Fayette	25	New River/Greenbrier Valley	New River/Greenbrier Valley
11	Gilmer	10	Mountain Lakes	Mountain Lakes
12	Grant	7	Potomac Highlands	Potomac Highlands
13	Greenbrier	43	New River/Greenbrier Valley	New River/Greenbrier Valley
14	Hampshire	27	Potomac Highlands	Potomac Highlands
15	Hancock	10	Northern Panhandle	Northern Panhandle
16	Hardy	25	Potomac Highlands	Potomac Highlands
17	Harrison	21	Mountaineer Country	Mountaineer Country
18	Jackson	10	Mid-Ohio Valley	Mid-Ohio Valley
19	Jefferson	77	Eastern Panhandle	Eastern Panhandle
20	Kanawha	82	Metro Valley	Metro Valley
21	Lewis	12	Mountain Lakes	Mountain Lakes
22	Lincoln	2	Hatfield-McCoy Mountains	Metro Valley
23	Logan	3	Hatfield-McCoy Mountains	Metro Valley
24	Marion	22	Mountaineer Country	Mountaineer Country
25	Marshall	11	Northern Panhandle	Northern Panhandle
26	Mason	12	Metro Valley	Metro Valley
27	McDowell	17	New River/Greenbrier Valley	New River/Greenbrier Valley
28	Mercer	17	New River/Greenbrier Valley	New River/Greenbrier Valley
29	Mineral	11	Potomac Highlands	Potomac Highlands
30	Mingo	8	Hatfield-McCoy Mountains	Metro Valley
31	Monongalia	44	Mountaineer Country	Mountaineer Country
32	Monroe	24	New River/Greenbrier Valley	New River/Greenbrier Valley
33	Morgan	13	Eastern Panhandle	Eastern Panhandle
34	Nicholas	13	Mountain Lakes	Mountain Lakes
35	Ohio	50	Northern Panhandle	Northern Panhandle
36	Pendleton	13	Potomac Highlands	Potomac Highlands
37	Pleasants	2	Mid-Ohio Valley	Mid-Ohio Valley
38	Pocahontas	22	Potomac Highlands	Potomac Highlands
39	Preston	21	Mountaineer Country	Mountaineer Country
40	Putnam	6	Metro Valley	Metro Valley
41	Raleigh	9	New River/Greenbrier Valley	New River/Greenbrier Valley
42	Randolph	34	Potomac Highlands	Potomac Highlands
43	Ritchie	6	Mid-Ohio Valley	Mid-Ohio Valley
44	Roane	4	Mid-Ohio Valley	Mid-Ohio Valley
45	Summers	8	New River/Greenbrier Valley	New River/Greenbrier Valley
46	Taylor	6	Mountaineer Country	Mountaineer Country
47	Tucker	9	Potomac Highlands	Potomac Highlands
48	Tyler	10	Northern Panhandle	Northern Panhandle
49	Upshur	7	Mountain Lakes	Mountain Lakes
50	Wayne	5	Hatfield-McCoy Mountains	Metro Valley
51	Webster	7	Mountain Lakes	Mountain Lakes
52	Wetzel	4	Northern Panhandle	Northern Panhandle
53	Wirt	6	Mid-Ohio Valley	Mid-Ohio Valley
54	Wood	46	Mid-Ohio Valley	Mid-Ohio Valley
55	Wyoming	4	New River/Greenbrier Valley	New River/Greenbrier Valley
(duplicates)		(5)
Total:		1,036

References

Again I am open for there being a different partition, but some grouping, any grouping would be a help. --Doncram (talk) 04:05, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

P.S. I revise the table in the list-article to show these regions, at least for now. It is just informational so far, it does not change where any links go to. --Doncram (talk) 04:07, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I will bet beer money that this would be very similiar to the conversations on Texas. I really again would like to make clear, most of the people who reside in the state will differ on which county goes in which region. USA Magazine would not be my preferred source, can we get something like the WV Cultural and History center as a source? Why confuse the issue on a state with 55 counties?Coal town guy talk 13:07, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

The point is to improve reader and editor experience by using regions, which is what is done elsewhere, e.g. by our breaking apart cities of Baltimore, St. Louis, Boston, Denver, others by geographic areas, rather than dividing them alphabetically. It is a pretty simple principle, to use meaningful geographic areas. It is more urgent to use regions to group Texas' 254 counties than here, because the readers are getting a shittier experience there currently, but perhaps it is helpful here too, and perhaps easier here to see how regions will work.

Okay, browsing at WV Cultural whatever, I find in its report on ethnic communities. "In this report, we have organized the communities under eight geographic headings, which are the tourism regions recognized by the West Virginia Division of Tourism. The eight regions are the Northern Panhandle, the Eastern Panhandle, the Potomac Highlands, Mountaineer Country, the Mountain Lakes region, the New River/Greenbrier region, the Metro Valley, and the Mid-Ohio Valley." That sounds like it nearly matches up to the first try above, using all the same names besides dropping "Hatfield-McCoy". Professionals providing info about the state find it necessary/helpful to break it into regions, right. --Doncram (talk) 13:43, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes the WV Cultural whatever is probably the only legit source of historic data left in the state...UNLESS you happen to hang out at WVU and their archives..The Hatfield-McCoy "region" is a marketing tool and a somewhat derisive term....UNLESS its OK by you to propagate the idiom of dumb hicks and family feuds...It does sell T shirts. Just a thought, some people dont like that term. Naming a region in that manner could cause alot of potential editors to say, noCoal town guy talk 14:14, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Okay, that works fine, its eight regions split NRHPs as:

1. Eastern Panhandle - 209 NRHPs in 3 counties
2. Metro Valley - 161 NRHPs in 9 counties
3. Mid-Ohio Valley - 75 NRHPs in 7 counties
4. Mountain Lakes - 60 NRHPs in 7 counties
5. Mountaineer Country - 133 in 7 counties
6. New River/Greenbrier Valley - 147 in 8
7. Northern Panhandle - 107 in 6
8. Potomac Highlands - 148 in 8

I note there is some text characterizing population and other characteristics (ethnicities and more) of each of the regions, in the WV report, which could be used a bit in brief intros about the regions. --Doncram (talk) 14:16, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Again this will help coverage most for the remoter, more isolated listings. E.g. the "Mountain Lakes" area, characterized by the WV Dept of Arts, Culture and History as "historically perhaps the most isolated region in the state." ([1]) It goes on to say

This area proportionally has the smallest population. The larger communities in the area include Weston (Lewis County), Buckhannon (Upshur County), Glenville (Gilmer County) and Summersville (Nicholas County). Nicholas and Clay counties have been important coal counties and were home at one time to several ethnically diverse coal towns. Towns like Widen, Clay County, had incredibly diverse communities during their heyday as coal towns. There have also been major lumbering operations in the region. Throughout the Mountain Lakes, English, Irish, and German ancestry are common. To a lesser extent, Scots-Irish, Italian, Dutch, Scottish, and French roots are also present. Historically, Scots-Irish and German farm culture had a major impact in the area. These older ancestral roots were major influences in the early history of the state, however there are currently few distinct regional ethnic communities in the counties in the Mountain Lakes region. Lewis County was an important rural home for West Virginia Catholics, mostly of Irish and German ancestry, and there are prominent reminders of those communities in the area. Most activities to be found in this area reflect the general population, and many activities have an Appalachian emphasis, although there are a few that also have an ethnic flavor, including the Irish Spring Festival.

I am curious whether the NRHP listings in that area reflect that characterization. And to see what reader experience can be like with the linked "map of all coordinates". Trying now with Draft:National Register of Historic Places listings in Mountain Lakes region, West Virginia. --Doncram (talk) 14:40, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

However users will be able to go to county specific lists still, right? The current image map is for countiesCoal town guy talk 14:54, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

OK I looked at your draft, I am utterly lost. Sorry. And a new user wou7ld also be utterly lost. I have to page down, find a county as it is listed in a region I may or may not know? UH NOCoal town guy talk 14:57, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Um, it is a work in progress, quite literally. It probably didn't have all the counties merged into it yet when u went to it, so it would have been a bad experience if u were looking for one of the missing ones. And it definitely didn't even have a TOC in it yet when you wrote that, i just added one, and it can/will otherwise be improved. But, majorly, if you clicked on a given county in the state-wide list-article, say Webster County, you would get brought directly to its county table, i.e. to Draft:National Register of Historic Places listings in Mountain Lakes region, West Virginia#Webster County. No more confusing than being brought to a county table amidst a bunch of other counties scattered around the state. Here the counties form a coherent region, and you will be pleasantly surprised when you click on the map of all coordinates.

Okay right now there are two Table of Contents (TOC) bars in the draft, one listing all 55 counties and one listing just the seven in this page. There will eventually only be one, basically the 55 one, but with bold or regular font indicating the ones on this page, and with regular or italic font indicating the ones on a different page. This is like similar use of fonts in List of RHPs in MN and other state-wide list-articles where smaller counties are grouped below and only bigger counties are split out. --Doncram (talk) 15:35, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Okay I also refined the 55 county TOC bar that way, i.e. showing bold for the 7 counties and italics for the others. --Doncram (talk) 19:02, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, one thing I notice in the map, is that the NRHP listings are located along the squiggly lines, i.e. the rivers/creeks. Also I notice the first draft does not reflect any characterisation of WV irish and german catholics, like the WV writeup suggests; this may be because there are no descriptions for almost all of the sites. Grouped together this way, I or other editors might be motivated to develop some descriptions, because I would be interested in showing the relationships in the region. --Doncram (talk) 15:10, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

"Catholic" does not appear once in any article title. Upon going to its article, though, i see St. Bernard Church and Cemetery is in fact about a Roman Catholic church serving an Irish immigrant area. I really would be motivated to develop some short description for it in the region article, tieing it to the WV Dept of Arts Culture and History-asserted theme of the region. This reminds me of List of NHLs in NY which I worked on long ago, where there were discernable themes covered in the intro corresponding to the contents/descriptions below. --Doncram (talk) 15:41, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

MUCH better as to organization. Coal town guy talk 16:09, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Okay, good. You probably did see a draft which was a mess. --Doncram (talk) 19:02, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

And the Michael Smith House is an 1848-built log home, part of a German immigrant community. The German and Scots-Irish catholic heritage could be mentioned in an intro discussion, linking or not to some of the examples below which would mention those key words in their descriptions. Along with mention that this heritage may be reflected in contributing resources in historic district articles too. (Maybe one takeaway, which I wouldn't explicitly state unless supported by a source, would be that there is some but not very much legacy/artifacts of this heritage remaining, because perhaps there is more NRHP listing coverage of other odd historical things in the area, so be it.) I am certainly not ever interested in developing descriptions or regional theme coverage in sometimes-tiny separate county list-articles, nor does it make sense for anyone else to do so. I would be very happy to spend some time developing similar thematic discussion, and corresponding individual NRHP site descriptions, in all eight region list-articles, if/when this region organization can be implemented in mainspace. --Doncram (talk) 19:02, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

It is a big deal when speaking to state origins..Morgan Morgan had been reported to be the states first settler, BUT, NOT SO. It turns out a germanic lutheran congregagtion was there before himCoal town guy talk 19:24, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Okay, good. I am certainly glad to work out a way forward for more coherent discussion of West Virginia's historic sites, which I think can be done, a bit, using regional list-articles and the WV Arts, Culture & History sources, plus eventually perhaps other sources that will emerge. With this prospect, and with the organization clarified, User:Coal town guy, would you now support the reorganization of the WV NRHP lists now, this way? Or is there anything else you'd like to get resolved? Perhaps it is necessary to discuss this at wt:NRHP or to involve more participation here, before proceeding. But it would be nice to have a small consensus, of two, here, first. --Doncram (talk) 17:57, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

IF you can state clearly that a user would be taken directly to the targeted county list, yes, and you did so [[2]] rather well. Most users I have met who edit WV or KY or VA or OH or TN want to be able to easily find the county. Can you guarantee that for every county?Coal town guy (talk) 18:12, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely, including for readers clicking on a county in the clickable map. :) Good. --Doncram (talk) 18:52, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

I've given notice at wt:NRHP asserting that we have somewhat of a consensus here, and calling for broader consideration, before going ahead with implementing the above. I paused for a while to let the Texas regions discussions conclude, which I think they have done, and to allow each of us to think about the 8-regions approach for a bit; i think it is a good approach. --Doncram (talk) 21:07, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I have the same issue with this that I did with the Texas listings; nobody outside of the tourism industry has heard of half of these regions. I still don't see why leaving the county lists as they are is an issue, especially with a state like WV that has fewer counties and more listings per county than TX. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 03:01, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Okay, well you are free to ignore the existence of the groupings, and navigate from National Register of Historic Places listings in West Virginia by county alone. You can ignore the sortable column there (which has been in place for a few weeks) that allows you to see which counties make up which region. You can ignore a clickable map which makes it obvious (after such a map gets created, there isn't one yet). And yet, after you go to any county's table, you can still benefit from linked "map of all coordinates" showing all the NRHPs in the region, instead of erroneously suggesting gaps of coverage (if a merger of just the smallest counties was done), or instead of showing nothing or very little at all, for the county "lists" that have just one or two or three listings. You may not be embarrassed to have such "lists". And again as for Texas, no professional presentation about tourism or economic development or anything else across the state is done without using regional groupings. For WV, please feel free to consult how guidebooks and reports and everything are organized in fact. --Doncram (talk) 04:46, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

User:TheCatalyst31, obviously I am kind of invested and want to proceed, but I do also believe it is better to hear differences of opinion and hopefully work out better solutions. Like I think happened recently in Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Harris County#Split discussion, and I think happened above, where User:Coal town guy and I evolved along to a better proposal. Thank you for commenting, really, and I'm sorry if I come across overly strong.

Please do google search on "regions of west virginia" and I think you will see repeated use of this framework of 8 regions though. I happen to think using tourist regions is fine, especially when they are sort of official as here and as was the case for grouping Puerto Rico's NRHPs. Here they are also used by the state SHPO basicly, i.e. the official WV department covering history stuff, more substantially than the corresponding Texas department used the driving tour regions there. Please do browse around.

"File:West Virginia Counties for Stubs.png", created 2008 by User:Nyttend

Also, I just now noticed (from doing that google search) that Wikipedia already organizes some info by these eight regions: there exist

• Category:Eastern Panhandle geography stubs‎ (128 P)
• Category:Metro Valley geography stubs‎ (4 C, 186 P)
• Category:Mid-Ohio Valley, West Virginia geography stubs‎ (2 C, 211 P)
• Category:Mountain Lakes, West Virginia geography stubs‎ (1 C, 284 P)
• Category:Mountaineer Country geography stubs‎ (3 C, 161 P)
• Category:New River Greenbrier geography stubs‎ (7 C, 50 P)
• Category:Northern Panhandle geography stubs‎ (204 P)
• Category:Potomac Highlands geography stubs‎ (3 C, 217 P)

because it was obviously enough a good idea to use those regions, in 2008 when the categories were set up by User:Nyttend, and ever since. --Doncram (talk) 01:42, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Based on Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/Archive/January 2008#West Virginia geography stubs discussion, which pointed to WV DOT transportation region maps. --Doncram (talk) 04:56, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

And I see each of those categories link to an article on the region. In case of Mountaineer County, it links to North Central West Virginia, with "(sometimes known as "Mountaineer Country")". I would be happy to use "North Central West Virginia" as name for that region, if others prefer. We would still be able to use the WV art, culture, history department's work characterizing the ethnicities and history of the region. There are some discrepancies between the "West Virginia Counties for Stubs" map vs. the maps shown in the region articles, e.g. for Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, however, which I assume we could resolve. --Doncram (talk) 02:28, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

I still don't see a compelling reason to do things differently from the other states, nor am I convinced that these are broadly used categories. Contrary to what you said above, the stub categories don't link to articles for the most part, and several of those regions don't seem to have articles at all. Stub categories are only used by editors, so we don't have to worry as much about the general public understanding what the regions are. A couple of the names are confusing; "Mountain Lakes" doesn't mean a ton in a state that has mountains everywhere, and "New River/Greenbrier Valley" awkwardly mashes two separate rivers together (and includes a few counties that aren't on either river, like McDowell and Wyoming). Counties are well-defined, easy to understand, and consistent with how the NPS organizes its listings, and I'm still not sure why regions would be preferable. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 01:02, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Oppose regionalization. Moving to regions doesn't seem to offer a lot of benefit and seems likely to cause confusion. If people want to see what counties are near each other, they can reference the county map. Bitmapped (talk) 01:33, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

"Regions" must be agreed upon entities. As they are defined, and implemented, I cant see any benefit to anyone except a small group of editors, and that is not good enough. I can promise that most of the people I meet while doing photography in WV have zero idea of agreement on this concept. I oppose as well. IF there is a way to implement Regions, that is clear and agreed upon and makes sense, sure, why not. BUT NOW, no.Coal town guy (talk) 12:57, 29 October 2018 (UTC)