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. Article has been improved; nominator has withdrawn his nomination. More work can be done to improve the article. Firsfron of Ronchester 19:17, 26 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Drake, Arizona (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log | edits since nomination)

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No evidence of a community here; this is simply a rail junction and former railroad work camp. Coverage of the current quarry/industrial operations is not significant. The historic bridge is covered at National Register of Historic Places listings in Yavapai County, Arizona. – dlthewave ☎ 16:01, 18 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Keep (nom) per sources found by Doncram and others. – dlthewave ☎ 18:45, 26 September 2022 (UTC) reply

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Geography and Arizona. – dlthewave ☎ 16:01, 18 September 2022 (UTC) reply
• Keep - quite a few mentions about this populated place back in the 1920s and 1930s, such as this obit, this, this, this, this, and this. Clearly meets GEOLAND. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 16:24, 18 September 2022 (UTC) reply

I can't see those articles at Newspapers.com, each says a subscription is required. I see that several are in the Arizona Republic and at least one is in the Williams News of Williams, Arizona. Others commenting below seem to be dismissing these items as mere mentions of Drake as a place, not a community. -- Doncram ( talk) 23:12, 21 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Doncram, here are free-access clippings: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] – dlthewave ☎ 03:47, 22 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Thank you for providing those. One is about death of the forest ranger stationed at Drake; one is about a woman who was teacher at Drake's school; others mention Drake in context where Drake could be a town or not. See my new comment below identifying Drake, aka Cedar Glade, as a town with population 70, a ranger station, a school, and more, in this edit. -- Doncram ( talk) 04:25, 22 September 2022 (UTC) reply

• Redirect to Yavapai County. This is a named railroad junction. As there is no other named place for miles around, the name was used to designate the location of anything in the general area from the cement plant to the bridge. There is no indication there is or was any kind of legally recognized community there (fails GEOLAND), and the usage that does exist is not enough for a stand-alone article that meets GNG. MB 19:06, 18 September 2022 (UTC) reply
• Delete fails WP:V, as we don't have a reliable source saying this is or was a populated place. A mention in a newspaper as being a place is not enough for this. Also fails WP:GEOLAND, which only gives near-automatic recognition to legally recognised populated places, and there is no evidence this is or was a legally recognised populated place. If it never was then it has to pass WP:GNG, and it clearly doesn't. Hut 8.5 15:59, 19 September 2022 (UTC) reply
• Keep. I went to this place in May 2008, trying to get photos of the two road bridges built in 1923 listed on the NRHP as being nearby, which involved driving south downhill, coming down into canyon along what Google maps identifies as Forest Service Rd 492 / local route 71, to a point near Drake Cement. I believe i got a very faraway shot of one of the two bridges, with no telephoto; it was not worth uploading to Commons. I believe that jeeps/4wd vehicles could go through on 71 but it didn't look good for my car (if i recall correctly), and also the NRHP documents were not available online so I didn't have good info about what I was looking for, and I had other places to go. I recall thinking it looked like it would be a long hike to get up to the far-away bridge, which might or might not be the NRHP one, as I think there is a historic railroad bridge around there too, and it was hot, so I retreated. [In fact i was close to the bridge, looking down on it, it did not look special from above; i thot that was not the NRHP-listed one. -- Doncram ( talk) 04:41, 22 September 2022 (UTC) I did upload a photo of NRHP-listed bridge at Perkinsville, 16.4 miles by road away, downstream from Drake. reply

The two NRHP listings identified as being near Drake are substantial evidence of it being a community. NRHP listings always name a "nearest community", which NRHP editors know is sometimes confusing because the named community might be across a county or state line (so sometimes the county or state holding the actual place ends up getting misidentified, and many years later it may no longer be the nearest community because another sprang up or because the named place declined. Often it is more appropriate now to identify the NRHP place as being in a township that now exists and includes it. It is always the case, though, that the NRHP listing did name an actual community. NRHP instructions "How to complete the National Register Registration form, gives as instructions for location (page 10):

Enter the name of the city or town where the property is located. For properties outside the boundaries of a city or town, follow the instructions for Vicinity. / VICINITY / For a property located outside the boundaries of a city or town (or where the address is restricted), mark "x" in the box, and enter the name of the nearest city or town found on the USGS map in the blank for "city or town."

In particular, Clayton B. Fraser, a meticulous person who prepared the 1987 NRHP Multiple Property Submission (MPS) document form for "Vehicular Bridges in Arizona", which was used to list the Hell Canyon Bridge and the Little Hell Canyon bridge (see the signature pages from the MPS included in each of their separate NRHP documents) and more, would know the requirements. Fraser did the prior study used for the MPS:

the Arizona Bridge Inventory, conducted by Fraserdesign in 1986-87. Undertaken for the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) with the cooperation of the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office (ASHPO) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), this comprehensive study presents a historical inventory and evaluation of pre-1945 vehicular bridges currently in use on the state, county and city road systems of Arizona.(Fraser, in the MPS)

Fraser was responsible for providing names of nearest communities for NRHP listings of the numerous bridges in the MPS.

In the case of the Hell Canyon Bridge, the document used for NRHP listing is this document, which is actually a HABS/HAER document prepared by Clayton B. Fraser in 1987, following field visit in 1986, identified the bridge as being .5 miles southwest of Drake. The document notes that "The Hell Canyon Bridge functioned on U.S. Highway 89 until its replacement by a route realignment in 1954. It now stands abandoned, carrying intermittent local traffic." The document includes a portion of an Arizona Department of Transportation map which identifies Drake. I believe Drake was located in property owned by Drake Cement which spreads all around there, and is closed off.

Google maps shows two cemeteries which provide evidence of population: the Puntenney Cemetery and the Cedar Glade Cemetery. Findagrave, about the latter, states:

Cedar Glade Cemetery, also known as Drake Cemetery, is located on the grounds of the Drake Cement Company sandstone processing plant near Hell Canyon. Visitors must stop at the security gate for permission to enter the facility. The company is dedicated to preserving the graves and has fenced off this historic pioneer cemetery.

Accompanying 2 photos show 1) a sign identifying it as being in Drake and 2) a view of the cemetery. Maybe there are only 13 memorials photographed and included in Findagrave, but from the photo and how findagrave works (focusses on graves that clearly identify a person, not unidentifiable ones), I believe the cemetery would have many more graves. The Puntenney Cemetery's findagrave gives number of 53 memorials, with 9 percent having been photographed.

The Little Hell Canyon Bridge's NRHP document (also a HABS/HAER form prepared by Clayton b. Fraser, dated 1987, after field visit in 1986) states that it is located on "Abandoned grade of U.S. 89 over Little Hell Canyon 8 miles northwest of Drake." and calls it originally a highway bridge, now a ranch road bridge.

This is together evidence that Drake was a pioneer community. It makes sense the valley spot would have been a location for a community. It definitely would be abandoned by now, being bypassed and way down a canyon. Finally (although this cannot really count as evidence for this AFD), I seem to recall this was a community/location named by author Louis L'Amour, who spent time in the general area (drifting, working, fighting) and used places in the general area as settings for some of his western novels. I can't immediately find its mention where it would appear in one of his books' intros or epilogues, though. I see there exists a book Trailing Louis L'Amour in Arizona (By Bert Murphy) which would likely cover Drake, if in fact L'Amour did use it as one of his settings. -- Doncram ( talk) 18:44, 21 September 2022 (UTC) reply

P.S. User:MB, as an experienced NRHP editor, could you reconsider your !vote, given this? -- Doncram ( talk) 19:11, 21 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Searching for Cedar Glade, I found this which describes an actual town that was renamed Drake in 1920. I'll do some more searching to see if there is significant coverage but it seems that there was more here than I thought. – dlthewave ☎ 03:53, 22 September 2022 (UTC) reply

• Comment: [Edit conflict with Dlthewave finding same source.] Drake did develop from a railway workcamp, which was there for construction of high "Big Hell Canyon Railroad Bridge" on very high trestles in 1900 or 1901, and it was known as Cedar Glade until 1920 when it was renamed to Drake. It had a ranger station, a school, apparently a brothel, and population of 70. The grave memorials in Cedar Glade Cemetery, as well as those in Puntenney Cemetery across Hell Canyon/Limestone Canyon (actually i am not sure if the two canyon names are for one canyon holding two names in this section, or if Limestone Canyon is a side canyon to much longer Hell Canyon), include numerous infant deaths. The cliffs on both sides of canyon are limestone; lime kilns were first on the Puntenney side and it developed as a town earlier, and had a post office from January 12, 1905 to September 30, 1932. This from "A Tale of Two Towns: Cedar Glade (Drake) and Puntenney, Arizona", by Kathy Block, historian of American Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project (internet version of November 18, 2011), which also includes:
• "By 1909 the post office also served Cedar Glade, with a population of 70 people. The postmaster compensation for the year was $24.41 in 1905 and $120 in 1909. Cedar Glade was named for the junipers, commonly called “cedar” in those times."
• "George Puntenney, when he established Puntenney, built a one room schoolhouse for the area's children. As Cedar Glade across Hell Canyon developed, the children living there had to cross on a railroad trestle until the schoolhouse was moved across the canyon. Finally, a schoolhouse for Cedar Glade was built in 1928. The 1920 Census listed Barnetta Ball, age 39, as “Teacher Public School.” [vs. Elizabeth Stroud is the teacher mentioned in 30 Jan 1922 Arizona Republic article linked above.]
• Freda Schwanbeck Davis was a "student at the school in Puntenney (which had a peak population of about 2,500.)" Her early memories of Cedar Glade were covered in a 1981 Prescott Courier article.
• "In 1912 Cedar Glade also became the junction for the Verde Valley Railroad, which accessed a copper smelter in Clarkdale. .... Approximately 20 structures had been built there by the railroad, including a depot, agent's house, water tank, a number of section houses, bunkhouse, and freight warehouses. The railroad kept a small staff in Drake thru the 1950s."

I expect searching on Cedar Glade will yield more sources. Also a ADMMR mining collection file: Cedar Glade Quarries is about quarries there. Wikipedia does not have an article on the larger town of Puntenney, Arizona; offhand I wouldn't mind if the two towns were covered in one article because their histories are linked. this about Puntenney as a ghosttown has some info about Cedar Glade, and that the bridge between is blocked by the cement plant. But the result of AFD should be "Keep", either way. -- Doncram ( talk) 04:25, 22 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 17:22, 26 September 2022 (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.