Bobtown, Indiana (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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This book's explanation of the name's origin for a place in Clay County strikes me as a bit of a "just so" story, but it's about all I get besides Baker. I'm just not finding a trace of the place searching and there's nothing there which suggests it was really a town. @Uncle G:? Mangoe (talk) 13:44, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Indiana-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 14:22, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 14:23, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• The interesting thing is reading Baker, p. 71. Baker tells us that xe can only guess at what this is because it doesn't appear any maps that xe has consulted. It's like reading a deletion nomination rationale straight out of the source. ☺

  Wanting to be thorough, although one could just leave it at that, I did some looking. There's a biography of John Mellencamp (ISBN 9780857128430) that says that this was the original working title of The Lonesome Jubilee because Mellencanp's grandparents "once lived there".

  Other than that, though, I have turned up nothing. There are some soil surveys that name a soil type after this, but they aren't documenting the (supposed) town. The gazetteers only turn up the place in Massachusetts. I couldn't even construct more than a vague opening sentence of an article, with zero hope for expansion or clarification, because even the biography only narrows it down to Jackson County, and is only indirectly reporting the existence of the place based upon Mellencanp's recollection of how xe named a music album. For a place, I'd prefer a geographer to a biographer.

  Uncle G (talk) 17:06, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: I added a 2015 local newspaper article source, as well as a Billboard magazine cite about the Mellencamp connection. The property owner name Mellencamp appears right near the location on some plat maps. eg [1]; though not listed as "Bobtown" on that one, you can see where the school was located, and there are a bunch of smaller plots centered at the location. It was/is an unincorporated community which has receded into remembrance, like so many U.S. midwestern locales.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 22:24, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Adding: there are 101 hits for "Bobtown" in the archives of the Seymour Daily Republican (1898-1920), on internet archive [2]. Mostly mundane reporting of what's happening in the community. But more than enough to show it was a recognized populated community.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 22:35, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Checking out a random sampling of the Daily Republican and finding random things like reports of football teams with "CORTLAND" as the headline, and "Lawrence Phegley sold a cow" without any sort of clue about a Bobtown, this seems to be another case of counting the number of hits rather than reading the sources. I challenge you to find just two of those newspaper hits that actually tell you what Bobtown is, the basic "Bobtown is a …" introduction part of an article. Should be easy, right, with 101 of them? So prove it. And as you note, Billboard is Mellencamp's recollection, as I discussed above. That map that doesn't say Bobtown at all is a contraindication, if anything, and yet more support for Baker saying that this isn't on any maps at all. The only real source is Spicer, which you've mis-cited by the way, but which doesn't say vital things like that it was a town, or a village, or even a hamlet. There's a one-room rural school and grocery story run by a Bob that apparently gave rise to a nickname. Uncle G (talk) 02:36, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I said the daily republican hits were "mundane", you're telling me to prove they aren't mundane? is this a trick? Don't let your obvious hate of the work of John Cougar Mellencamp cloud your opinion of the once beautiful small rural Indiana community which went by the name of Bobtown. There are USGS maps which list Bobtown on them, by the way e.g. bottom third center here [3]. Seriously though, I understand your view of notability of such places like this varies from mine, and that's ok.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 19:57, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Star Mississippi 02:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]