Talk:List of National Historic Landmarks in Alabama

List of National Historic Landmarks in Alabama is a featured list, which means it has been identified as one of the best lists produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 23, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed
January 4, 2009	Featured list candidate	Promoted

Current status: Featured list

Lists

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National Register of Historic Places High‑importance

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Alabama

This article is part of WikiProject Alabama, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Alabama on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page to join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.AlabamaWikipedia:WikiProject AlabamaTemplate:WikiProject AlabamaAlabama articles

Quality rating of this list-table article for WP:NRHP

Per discussion at Talk page of WP:NRHP of what should warrant Stub/Start/B/FL class rating for a list-table, I think this article merits "Start" rating within WP:NRHP, because:

It is a "useful" list in the sense required in WP:WIAFL
It is factually accurate as far as it goes. Support for all facts about NHLs within are supported by the corresponding articles, I think.
It is comprehensive, listing all the NHLs in AL.
There should not be controversy about its scope, it is a factual matter what sites are NHLs and which are not.
It displays photos of some of its items
There is an article of at least Stub class for every item on the list.
Reference supporting completeness (first External link) is provided.

It's still a low rating, so I am going ahead and rating it myself, although I am one of the main authors. doncram 15:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work, editors of this article, (User:Altairisfar mostly) for developing this article. I visited all the NHL articles it indexes and upgraded those still at Stub to Start, as they deserve the higher rating. Now all are Start or higher, and there are at least 5 B-rated articles. That means the main criteria for NRHP list-articles to reach B-class, so this list-article deserves B-class, too. Nice job! doncram (talk) 22:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cross-reference lists material for article

Someone else removed the following material from the end of the article. I had thought there was some info in it, worth refering to in writing the end sections of the article. For other state NHL articles such as List of National Historic Landmarks in New York it has seemed helpful to have cross-reference lists. So I am pasting it here to keep for now. From www.al.com (to be verified and used to update the article):

"National Forests, Preserve, and Seashore
Alabama has four national forests and one national preserve within its borders. They provide over 25% of the state's public recreation land. Managed by the forest service for multiple uses, there is a diversity of ecological systems and wildlife. Activities range from fishing and hunting, to hiking and bird-watching. There are forty-four developed recreation sites within the four forests. The preserve also offers recreation opportunities. There is a national seashore that runs along the gulf coast, encompassing several islands and beachfront areas.
National Forests: » Conecuh National Forest » Talladega National Forest » Talladega National Forest (Oakmulgee Division) » Tuskegee National Forest » William B. Bankhead National Forest
National Preserves: » Little River Canyon National Preserve
National Seashore: » Gulf Islands National Seashore

— Somebody, www.al.com Source

(end quote that is to be used in editing the article)

And also from www.al.com (to be edited):

National Historical Parks and Monuments
Preserved for the purposes of posterity, these parks were the site of important historical events. History mixes with outdoor recreation at these commemorative spots.
» Horseshoe Bend National Military Park » Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail » Russell Cave National Monument » Trail of Tears National Historic Trail » Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site
State Historic Sites
Whether officially recognized by the state as historic sites, or simply considered thus by local authorities, these parks all offer recreation activities alongside educational programs.
» Brierfield Ironworks Park » Confederate Memorial Park » Cornwall Furnace » Fort Gaines » Fort Morgan » Fort Toulouse/Jackson Park » Historic Blakely State Park » Kymulga Grist Mill » Landmark Park » Moundville Archaeological Park » Rikard's Mill » Tannehill Ironworks » Vulcan Park

— Somebody, Source

" (end 2nd quote that is to be used in editing article) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doncram (talk • contribs) 00:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Photos

Hey, I don't know if there's a plan to get better photos, but there's free images of Fort Mitchell here and the Yuchi Town Site here. Well done on this list though! Murderbike (talk) 03:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

National Park Service sites

Removed this from article, as I don't know what is to be done with it. I just don't think that these should be included in an article about National Historic Landmarks in Alabama.

"There are National Historic Sites and other NPS areas in Alabama, to be listed here. These include:

One site to be included, though perhaps not a National Historic Site, is Grey Columns, an antebellum mansion that is listed on the National Register with indication of National Park Service control, for which NRHP text and photos are available."

Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site isn't a National Historic Landmark, though Tuskegee Institute is and it is already listed in the main table. Has the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site been nominated for National Historic Landmark status? If so I would like it in the "Similar sites" table. If not, I don't think it belongs in this particular list. Likewise, there are other National Park Service administered sites that are not NHLs: Horseshoe Bend, Russell Cave, Little River Canyon, Natchez Trace Parkway. Open to suggestions, as I'm trying to get the article up to FL quality. Perhaps we should add a "Historic areas in the United States National Park System" section like the NY article, but I don't know how appropriate this is in an article entitled "List of National Historic Landmarks in Alabama" since the Tuskegee Airmen site is actually the only one of these that is classed as a historic site. Altairisfar _talk 20:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

O.K., I've added a new section, "Historic areas in the United States National Park System", and added Russell Cave National Monument, Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, and Horseshoe Bend National Military Park to it. Does anyone think that the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail and Trail of Tears National Historic Trail should be added also? Altairisfar _talk 09:24, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Glad you are working ahead on this. I think you got it right to have a table of those 3. The NPS PDF document linked from the article, listing NHLs in the state, makes a point to also list the historic areas in the National Park System, which are Horseshoe Bend NMP, Russell Cave NM, Tuskegee Airmen NHS, and Tuskegee Institute NHS. Assuming the latter is the same area covered by the Tuskegee Institute NHL, then you have the three necessary to round out the article as a list of historic landmarks to which the NPS gives national importance recognition. The Tuskegee Airmen site is separately located from the main Tuskegee Institute, as I recall, so does need to be a separate item. That Grey Columns one seems to have been NHL eligible perhaps, but was not declared an NHL. It, and most NHLs and most historic NMs or other historic NPS areas, is covered in a registration document available by searching here in NPS search screen for historic site documents. doncram (talk) 09:40, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link. Yes, Moton Field is completely separate from Tuskegee Institute. The college is both a National Historic Landmark and a National Historic Site. I'm just trying to look at it all through critical eyes so maybe it will have a good chance of passing to Featured List status one day. Hope I'm not trampling on everyone else's hard work in the process. Now the lead needs some expansion, maybe. Altairisfar _talk 09:56, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) O.K., the lead is expanded a little, now back to work on expanding the articles. Altairisfar _talk 18:21, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're not "trampling" at all, in my book. I was indeed proud of work that I had done in this list-article and the articles it indexes back in October. In particular, I brought it up to being a complete, sortable list in good format, with date of NHL designation, with at least a stub article for each NHL covered, with every one of those NHL articles including a link to the corresponding NPS NHL webpage, with most including a link to the NRHP text/photos PDF documents (not positive, but I probably did link every one of those documents that are available on-line, too). Now, I see you have done a lot of work since in developing many of those articles, and I am just glad that you have, it is exactly what I hoped someone would do. I expect that is what others such as Ipoellet who also have many edits in the history would say, too. By all means, develop the list-article to Featured List-eligible, also. :) Go for it. doncram (talk) 02:50, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Table coloration

I notice that there are different colors along the left border of the table, maybe the very first cell in the row. Is this intentional? It's more pronounced in some places like the bottom table which has three different colors.

The content looks great. I like the ability to select which field is sorted upon. You are really doing great work! JodyB_talk 13:52, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have to admit that I was a little dubious about the coloration, but it's the project's standard to denote what type of NRHP property each site is. Ref #4 gives an explanation, but it isn't very obvious. It links to our explanation chart: NRHP colors legend. Thanks! Altairisfar _talk 17:08, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Widened over-tall table for portrait display

15-March-2009: To allow the table to better display in portrait-sized windows, rather than as landscape width, I am narrowing some columns to allow the description-column to wrap much more than 2-words-per-line:

increased total width from 98% to 101%;
reduced width of name from 18% to 13%;
used small-font dates to release 2-characters of width;
used small-font "Montgomery" to release 2-characters of width;
shortened images that were much taller than descriptions.

The table basically had been designed, with 7 wide columns, to fit on a spread-out landscape page, rather than the portrait-style display of most books. As you might know, standards are being discussed to emphasize the 800x600-pixel, portrait-style window size, as the recommended page layout for articles. Spreadsheet tables or large maps would be obvious exceptions to using portrait-style. Smaller sizes, such as "cell-phone size" are considered excessive, because obviously, most books are not printed at such techno-limited sizes. (When technology improves, phones should cleverly "unfold" or plug into larger (fabric?) screens, just as the fold-out keyboard was re-discovered by Christopher Columbophone, despite decades of text-haters PDA-penpricking the world to death because they refused the keyboard simplicity). Anyway, for full-screen pages, the list-style tables could be condensed, via several techniques to fit comfortably within regular portrait-style pages. See topic below: #Condensing table for portrait display. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:38, 15 March 2009

Condensing table for portrait display

15-March-2009: There are several ways to condense a table of 7 wide columns, as in the list of Alabama NHLs, to better fit in a portrait-style page, such as 800x600 width. Some options are as follows:

Perhaps the easiest option is to use width=110% (or such) to allow a wide table to scroll (slightly) left/right on a narrowed window.
Remove unnecessary columns (this is a harsh decision, because all columns are typically included as being notable).
Combine 2 wide columns, such as location + county (however, sorting by each might require separation; combining date+image would allow date-sorting, but purists might fight the combination).
Abbreviate column contents, such as using numeric date-formats.
Shrink column contents, such as small-font or hyphenated words allowing 30% more-narrowed columns.
Separate columns into multiple tables (consider if all columns are really needed side-by-side in a single table).

Although landscape-style windows might seem to support lazy-man typesetting, the landscape displays often acquire embarrassing, HUGE text-gaps when a new image is inserted at sparse text, because often the text alongside is too limited to auto-wrap-fill the entire wide spacing beside the image. So, portrait style is much easier to adjust when placing new images. Typically, the lazy-man's image typesetting would be all images spread across gallery-rows, splitting the text sections on wide landscape pages. The net result is that images tend to drift very far from the related text, and remain tiny postage-stamps. No wonder newspapers were typeset for decades using all-narrow columns: narrow columns weren't easier to read, they just avoided most text gaps because every phrase & picture was pre-shrunk to fit an endless series of such columns, like pouring goo into tall molds. On balance, use of portrait-style pages is easier to typeset, while also being readable, and having nearby images. However, 7-column tables must be carefully redesigned, to some extent, to fit within the whole typesetting scheme. See topic below: #Example combining county/description. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:38, 15 March 2009

Example combining county/description

15-March-2009: A very powerful solution to condensing the NHL tables is to include the county as the intro to the description text, in the manner of AP newsreports stating city (see table below). The logical precedent has been used, for years, to introduce a news story with the location, such as "New York - The Dow closed higher again, showing continued recovery from the depression". For the NHL tables, the combined County/Description would read like: "Mobile County - The battleship USS Alabama was commissioned in 1942...." Because Mobile County is named, at the start of the text, the column can be sorted by county. Also, because the county is a location, the combined text reads like an AP newsreport, prefaced with the location under discussion.

^[1]	Landmark name	Image	Date declared	Locality	County / Description
1^†	Alabama, USS (battleship)		January 14, 1986	Mobile 30°40′49″N 88°00′57″W / 30.6801903657°N 88.015810359°W / 30.6801903657; -88.015810359 (Alabama, USS (battleship))	Mobile County -- One of two surviving South Dakota-class battleships, Alabama was commissioned in 1942 and spent 40 months in active service in World War II's Pacific theater, earning 9 battle stars over 26 engagements with the Japanese.^[2]
2^†	Apalachicola Fort Site		July 19, 1964	Holy Trinity 32°10′17″N 85°07′49″W / 32.17134°N 85.13023°W / 32.17134; -85.13023 (Apalachicola Fort Site)	Russell County -- Spain established this wattle and daub blockhouse on the Chattahoochee River in 1690, attempting to maintain influence among the Lower Creek Indians. It was used for one year, and destroyed by the Spanish when they abandoned it.^[3]

The net result, combining county+text, is that the extra spacing from the wide county field widens the description text-wrapping by another 2-words-per-line, expanding from perhaps 5 to become 7-words-per-line, very readable in portrait display. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:38, 15 March 2009

I like the tweaks you did with the map, it looks better now that the text isn't overlapping the border. Why not suggest the broader NHL table style changes at WP:NRHP to generate broader discussion? Altairisfar _talk 05:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Other discussion pages

16-March-2009: (subtopic) Discussions of all NHL-lists, for all 50 states, have specific pages:

wp:NHL progress - a to-do list for improving all 50;
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/TableDisplayTestCases - discussion about format-changes affecting various NHL lists.

Specific changes for the Alabama NHL-list can continue below. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:02, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Numbers represent an ordering by significant words. Various colorings, defined here, differentiate the National Monuments, National Historic Sites, National Historic Landmark Districts and other higher designations from other National Historic Landmarks buildings, structures, sites or objects.
^ Example 1.
^ Example 2.

Translated to German

2-April-2009: On March 28, 2009, I translated the Alabama NHL-list article to German: "de:Liste der National Historic Landmarks in Alabama". All 37 images displayed correctly on the German Wikipedia. In fact, the entire list was complete: 37 landmark names, 37 photos, 37 dates, 37 places in 37 counties, with 37 latitudes, 37 longitudes, and 37 descriptions. However, some of the descriptions had awkward translations, so the article was immediately tag-boxed for problems of quality-assurance ("Qualitätssicherung"). The most common issue was reversed wording, as being effectively the German equivalent of saying, "The house in 1840 was built". I mention this issue to emphasize the situation, for the record: of the 44,228 bytes (5203 "words") in the article, 5 words could be considered incorrect, as 5 of 5203. As a whole, the article was 99.90% correct, but still tag-boxed with a dire warning for quality. Plus, that judgment was supported by several German-speaking users, who improved the landmark translations. As a result, when translating the California NHL-list, instead, the German article was created as a working-copy in German user-space (for translation-editing by everyone), rather than as the formal article. Anyway, for the Alabama NHL-list, the German version of the article can be considered as over 99.95% finished, at this time. Total translated NHL-lists: 18 of 50 states + D.C. (Boston & Philadelphia are not yet listed). -Wikid77 (talk) 10:07, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ship name formatting

I just reverted an edit that changed formatting of 3 ship names. I know this has been talked out extensively before. I'm sorry, Nyttend, i can't find the discussion just now, but i know it has been talked out, and I recall that the consensus is that the formatting used in this article, to use italics lowercase letters, rather than non-italic or italic uppercase letters, plus not using initial caps in the parenthetical phrase, is okay/good/preferred. The consensus was that we did not need to slavishly follow the limited typographics of the archaic NRIS system and/or the equally archaic NHL webpages system. If your point is that the exact formatting is used in the NHL list PDF document (at http://www.cr.nps.gov/nhl/designations/Lists/LIST07.pdf ), then please also note that document uses ALL CAPS for all the NRHP names, but we choose to use Initial Caps instead in all the other names.

The prior discussion not in the peer review or FLC discussion for this list-article, i have just checked that. I also have not checked whatever wp:NRHPmos says so far. I also haven't searched the WikiProject NRHP archives. Is this a general matter that needs to be discussed at, or requiring notice be provided at, wt:NRHP? I honestly think there is not much gain to be had from discussing this formatting issue, but if there is possibly a campaign on to address the ship names in all of the NHL or NRHP lists then it would be better to have a central discussion first. Perhaps Alabama is coming up first as it is first alphabetically, as part of such a campaign? --doncram (talk) 05:17, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with doncram on this one. I'm guessing that the NRIS/NHL databases having ship names in all caps is an artifact of the day of the typewriter when it wasn't possible to type in italics. The convention was to use all caps for any proper name that would be italicized if the document were typeset. While we want the names here to match those in the NPS databases, I don't think it's necessary or useful to blindly follow this particular convention. This is the only related discussion I could find in the project talk archives using a site-specific Google search. It doesn't really say much specific about ship names. --sanfranman59 (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strategy for Updating.

Has any one made certain that this list is current by comparing the date of the list from which info was taken (There are thirty-seven National Historic Landmarks (NHLs) in Alabama,{{Cite web | work = National Park Service | date = June 2011 | title = National Historic Landmarks Survey: List of National Historic Landmarks by State | publisher = U.S. Department of the Interior | url = http://www.cr.nps.gov/nhl/designations/Lists/LIST11.pdf | format = PDF | accessdate = 2011-07-04.) and the date that it would be assumed the last possible cite addition/deletion, October 2013? If something is a NHL but not on the 2011 list then it would not be necessarily checked? And if any differences are found are they appropriately reflected in any NRHP lists where notes about shared distinctions may appear?LimeyCinema1960 (talk) 22:26, 3 May 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by LimeyCinema1960 (talk • contribs) 22:21, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I verified that all NHL lists (not just this one) were up to date last year, using the 2013 list. I did not verify that relevant NRHP lists correctly reflected the status of landmarks; that is a somewhat more complex task, because of multi-component designations which include elements in multiple jurisdictions. I also did not necessarily update citations; this means that the citation in the first paragraph here is technically incorrect, since the 2011 list probably doesn't have 37 Alabama entries in it (lacking the 2013-designated Edmund Pettus Bridge). There is a new list for 2014, with three new designations (none in Alabama). Magic♪piano 20:34, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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[colorcodes-1] Numbers represent an ordering by significant words. Various colorings, defined here, differentiate the National Monuments, National Historic Sites, National Historic Landmark Districts and other higher designations from other National Historic Landmarks buildings, structures, sites or objects.

[ussalabama-2] Example 1.

[apalachicola-3] Example 2.

[1]

[2]

[3]