Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Spyrock, 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. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 22:58, 29 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Spyrock, California

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The spot this article is about is plainly an isolated station/siding on a long abandoned rail line; what is a little confusing in the search results is that if you go a short ways down stream, on the opposite side of the river is an outcropping which is also called "Spyrock". Anyway, there are lots and lo0ts of references to this name as a location, but nothing that says it is anything other than a station where people could pick up mail. Mangoe (talk) 03:56, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You too, eh? I was only a few hours ago using Spyrock to try to find out what River Garden, California (AfD discussion) was. ☺ I think that maybe River Garden station was named after something, but I have no clue what. The Eel River Valley was known for lumber and fruit farming at one point. Spyrock station was possibly named after something, too. Uncle G (talk) 07:09, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Erwin Gustav Gudde says that the station was named after a rock, where a lookout would be stationed. In the 1950s the USDA Forest Service was offering timber stand maps of Spy Rock, Mendocino. Going back to volume 33 of the Decisions of the Railroad Commission of the State of California this time, I find a decision for "Mendocino County, agency at Spyrock". And then:
Spy Rock
About two miles south of Twin Rocks and thirty-three miles north of Willits a road branches east from the Redwood Highway. About eight miles distant along this road is Spy Rock, an isolated peak in the Eel River Canyon, where Indians in early days built their smoke signal fires.
— Hoover, Mildred Brooke (1937). "Spy Rock". Historic Spots in California: Counties of the Coast Range. Stanford University Press. p. 209. ISBN 9781404750500.
So it is verifiable that this was not an "unincorporated community" but a lumber railway station and … well … a rock, but I have not really found anything else to say about it that supports a non-permastub article.
So will Mangoe go north or south along the railway? South, I see. ☺
Uncle G (talk) 07:42, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 08:19, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 08:19, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep was a community ([1]) with a school district ([2] - in-depth coverage likely in this six-volume work). Not exactly densely populated, more a collection of ranches, but Spy Rock is notable for other reasons (e.g. a nature reserve). Aside from that Larry Livermore wrote an entire book about the place and the community as it was there in the 1980s.----Pontificalibus 09:44, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Heh! Set you on the right trail with Hoover, did I? "spyrock" livermore brings up lists of bankers and lawyers in Livermore for me. It has to have the space. I didn't even know to search for "livermore". And I only get the Spy Rock School in Laytonville. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 10:35, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Argh - I just discovered that most of the stuff I spent time searching out was already detailed on the article's talk page by IllaZilla three years ago! ----Pontificalibus 13:26, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - We've definitely answered some of the questions raised. You should point your powers at River Garden, California (AfD discussion) too. Maybe it needs two spaces. ☺ I have looked around for just "garden", in that vein. Uncle G (talk) 14:12, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, you could possibly rename it to 'Spyrock reserve'. (Nice views up there by the way) JayzBox (talk) 05:32, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - based on Pontificalibus' research above which shows extended use as a settlement. Also, the petroglyph site there shows anthropological importance of the location. Netherzone (talk) 15:38, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - On the article's talk page you'll find several leads I put there a few years ago with ideas as to how to flesh out the article with the kind of information you'd find in most articles about towns/communities. I've done a good deal of light internet searching for information about it in the course of rewriting the biography of Larry Livermore (see my userspace draft of that if you like). It's not really a town, more of a community of agriculturists and mountain folk, but it appears to have some history worth discussing. Some geological formations (the "spy rock" itself, Iron Peak), some petroglyph sites, a school, that sort of thing. And several notable people/entities emerged from or got their start there: Larry Livermore, Tré Cool, The Lookouts, Lookout Records, and Gabrielle Bell. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:42, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, seems to pass WP:GNG, irrespective of whether it was actually a town/village or not. Devonian Wombat (talk) 21:44, 25 April 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.