Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Willow Valley, 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 no consensus. bibliomaniac15 03:36, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Willow Valley, California (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Appears to be a non-notable valley mislabeled as a "populated place" by GNIS. Topo maps show the label in a typeface that is used for geographic features, curved to follow the shape of the valley. –dlthewave ☎ 03:14, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. –dlthewave ☎ 03:14, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. –dlthewave ☎ 03:14, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. This appears to have a populated place at one point (and not just a valley). In a 1924 book, Willow Valley is listed as one of the school districts in Nevada County. ([1]) Other publications discuss stamp mills or mining operations in Willow Valley. ([2] [3]) Willow Valley is also listed in a 1958 and a 1968 roster of government officials published by the California Secretary of State. ([4] [5]) A publication from 1867 also talks about Willow Valley and lists some of the people/businesses that are there. ([6]) This leads me to believe that it was a populated place at one point at time, even if it is not now. Therefore, this article meets WP:GEOLAND. MarkZusab (talk) 13:57, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

These sources support the claim that people lived in the valley, but I'm not finding any coverage for a distinct community. –dlthewave ☎ 15:26, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• delete Everything found so far is consistent with what the topo maps show: this is a vaguely defined locale, now really something of a suburb of Nevada City. I could find no evidence that anyone now thinks of this as a "community", and really, just being a community isn't enough. And I don't see anything in these various references that could be used to expand the article much if at all: they are just passing mentions as the location of something or other, except for those two "roster" references; and unless someone can look at a real copy of the work in question, I at least can't tell what "Willow Valley" is appearing in a list of. Mangoe (talk) 17:39, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I think this clearly passes WP:GEOLAND based on a newspapers.com source search with articles such as the obituary here showing it's understood to be a community, and [7] showing it was at least a voting precinct. Even if this isn't a community and rather a geographic feature (which I doubt) there's heaps of coverage about the mining and school in the vicinity. SportingFlyer T·C 23:48, 9 May 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.