Talk:Snyder-Middleswarth Natural Area

Pennsylvania Mid‑importance

	Pennsylvania portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Pennsylvania, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Pennsylvania on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PennsylvaniaWikipedia:WikiProject PennsylvaniaTemplate:WikiProject PennsylvaniaPennsylvania articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Protected areas Low‑importance

	This article is part of WikiProject Protected areas, a WikiProject related to national parks and other protected natural or ecological areas worldwide.Protected areasWikipedia:WikiProject Protected areasTemplate:WikiProject Protected areasProtected areas articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

A fact from Snyder-Middleswarth Natural Area appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 17 December 2007, and was viewed approximately 1,702 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Snyder Middleswarth Natural Area lost its status as a Pennsylvania state park in the 1990s despite being a National Natural Landmark and Snyder County's only state park?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/December.

Wikipedia

Closed 1993?[edit]

According to this (pay-only) NewspaperARCHIVE.com reproduction of the Lancaster? Intelligencer, in 1993 the state was in a budget crunch and closed several recreation areas including Snyder-Middleswarth. It would seem afterward the park was changed in state statutes to a natural area. This should be easy to source offline. Also, I'm not sure I agree with saying it "lost" its status as a state park; if anything it gained in being turned into a natural area instead of a recreation-oriented area. --Dhartung | Talk 17:17, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, for the link. I had tried looking in some local libraries and not found anything. I obviously did not make this clear enough in the article, but it was a State Park that included the Natural Area before 1993, and after the state park ceased to exist (and now) it is a Bald Eagle State Forest Natural Area. Both state parks and state forests are under the same larger agency (now called Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Department of Environmental Resources or DER back in the early 1990s). My guess is that as a state park it had a ranger on duty, now as part of a state forest it does not. Otherwise, the facilities etc. are unchanged. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:01, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Name[edit]

IMHO the Name section goes into too much detail about the two politicians. That information should be available on the politician's page. This article should limit its comments to the fact that the park was named after the two individuals and include the links to their pages. If someone wants more info on the Snyder or Middleswarth they can click thru. The extra info in this article doesn't tell me anything about the park. 169.3.168.227 (talk) 18:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, while there may be a bit too much detail, I think that the article should make it clear why these two politicians (and not many others from Snyder County) were chosen as namesakes. I realize I forgot to mention Snyder Co itself is named for Governor Snyder. I will see about cutting back slightly on the detail, but think just linked names is too little. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Trimmed. This is not the place for exhaustive biographies; that's why we're a hypertext encyclopedia. --Dhartung | Talk 22:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the edits! It reads better this way. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 23:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]