Talk:Thistle, Utah

Thistle, Utah is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on April 17, 2013.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
April 8, 2010	Good article nominee	Listed
May 16, 2010	Peer review	Reviewed
October 5, 2010	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
January 13, 2011	Featured article candidate	Promoted
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 23, 2010. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Thistle, Utah, was destroyed by the most costly landslide (pictured) in the United States and was the first federal disaster area declared by the U.S. President in the state of Utah?
Current status: Featured article

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Possible Improvements[edit]

As a reader, I had two unanswered questions.

(1) What was the population of the town before the landslide? The number of buildings? The area?
(2) It is implied town was abandoned because of flooding, not because of being buried by dirt; for example "only a few structures with the upper portions of some buildings remain visible". But the article implies the water has been drained: "...redirect water flow past the landslide area, though a small pond remains". I have ended up not being sure what happened, and the present state of the town. Benthatsme (talk) 15:07, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Irrelevant sentence?[edit]

I recommend removing this sentence from the article: "In later years members of the Wasatch Academy climbed local mountains above the town to listen to the wind and watch the trains roaring up and down the canyon." It seems of no consequence to the town, its history or the area that at one time, some students from a boarding school 30 miles to the south listened to the wind in the nearby mountains. Thistle was a decades-old town where people were born, lived, worked and died; a trivial anecdote of a hike by students from a nearby town seems irrelevant. 166.70.16.205 (talk) 18:08, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Thanks for doing that, I removed the sentence from my draft (see below). However, I'm waiting for a book to arrive that I ordered before I release this draft. Thanks. Dave (talk) 05:33, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Re-write[edit]

FYI, I am working on a re-write to this article. As I have more experience with highway articles than ghost towns, I would appreciate the help of someone who knows where to look for old census and demographic information. The draft is at User:Davemeistermoab/sandbox. Thanks in advance. Dave (talk) 04:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done, the new version of the article is now up. 03:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

"Before" pictures?[edit]

If anyone can find any pics from before the landslide, I think that would make a good addition. --Doradus (talk) 01:40, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The two books used as sources do have lots of pre-slide pictures. While some of these are surely public-domain due to age, I'm not a copyright expert and could use some training on what I can and cannot upload without claiming fair use. Also, keep in mind these would probably not result in high quality images with the scan. Dave (talk) 07:02, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I found a nice photo of Thistle from the L. Tom Perry special collections, which I added to the page. The metadata says "circa 1871"--does that seem right? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 18:00, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent addition, thank you. There is Flickr user who has a 1982 picture (so just before the landslide) showing both the highway and rail junctions, I also think would be a great addition. I emailed the person asking if they would consider licensing it Creative commons, but they never replied. Frankly this was years ago and I forgot about it, maybe I'll ping again. But thank you, we finally have a pre-landslide pic. Dave (talk) 08:24, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Thistle, Utah/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Arsenikk ^(talk) 11:40, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The history and geography sections are good, but what about the community? What was Thistle? Were there public facilities? Was it incorporated? How was the town? Demographics? I kind of feel there is a lot missing from the article. In the end, the article reads like an article about the landslide, not Thistle. (still working on this)

For currency conversion, don't use "today", but "as of [year]". (fixed)
Dates don't end in "th". (fixed)
The rest area is not referenced. (still working on this)
The first reference is not formatted properly. (fixed)

I am placing the article on hold; there needs to be more about the settlement and community itself. Arsenikk ^(talk) 11:40, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback. I will try to address these this weekend. For the record, I didn't have a good source about thistle itself (most sources are about the landslide). However, I recently found one, and will use it to make the requested expansion. Dave (talk) 17:32, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK I have fixed the issues in the bulleted list. I finally found a source that may have some demographic information. I am reading that source now (it's a book, it will take a few days) and will update the article accordingly. Thanks for the review. Dave (talk) 06:09, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As long as things are progressing, don't worry about the few extra days. Arsenikk ^(talk) 07:53, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have added what I could from the book about the demographics, facilities, and info on the early settlers. The book dedicates a large section to interviewing the families who had to flee Thistle when the land slid, but unfortunately not much on the first immigrants. Dave (talk) 07:24, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not 100% satisfied, but if this is all that is available in reliable sources, then the article can meet the good article criteria. I am passing the article, and trust you will add more information, should you ever come across it in the future. Arsenikk ^(talk) 09:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review and feedback. I don't know if you noticed, but I also added a couple of paragraphs about the "pre-landslide" history of the area. I will add more as I find it.Dave (talk) 16:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Red circles on the map of Utah county[edit]

In the map of Utah county shown in the Railroads section, what are the 2 red circles indicating? Neither the caption in the article, nor the image description give any clues. Kaldari (talk) 05:43, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, that map was created a couple of years ago, with nobody noticing anything confusing. However, your point is duly noted. I'll add this to the image description. The circle is showing the area enlarged in the inset. The oval in the inset is the location of the landslide dam. Dave (talk) 07:31, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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