Wikipedia:WikiProject Washington/GNIS cleanup
Per Project:Reliability of GNIS data there are many (sub)stub articles on Washington places that have been created sourced to GNIS entries.
A lot of them falsely designate things as "unincorporated communities", which is several GNIS importers' catch-all equivalent to the GNIS catch-all feature classification code "populated place".
GNIS has many errors, and all of these (sub)stubs need cleanup.
To-do lists
/Asotin, County Sorted May 2024, Added missing place to county article.
=Deprecated=
Resources
{{further|Project:Reliability of GNIS data/Cleanup methodology and resources}}
; Arcadia Publishing books : As usual, these are broad guides to where the history will be found.
:If the local historians that Arcadia usually uses have something, that probably means that there are older, full histories and newspapers and other sources to be found and consulted, such as, again to pick just some:
:* {{cite book|title=An Illustrated History of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas Counties: With an Outline of the Early History of the State of Washington|publisher=Interstate Publishing Company|year=1904|chapter=Gano, James H.|ref={{harvid|IPC|1904}}}} ({{Internet Archive|name=An Illustrated History of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas Counties: With an Outline of the Early History of the State of Washington|id=illustratedhistorkykc00inte}})
:* {{cite book|title=An illustrated history of southeastern Washington, including Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Washington|publisher=Western Historical Publishing Company|author1-last= Shaver|author1-first=Frederic Ambrose|author2-last=Steele|author2-first=Richard F.|author3-last=Rose|author3-first=Arthur P.|location=Spokane, Washington|year=1906}} ({{Internet Archive|id=illustratedhisto00shav|name=An illustrated history of southeastern Washington, including Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Washington}})
:* {{cite book|title=A geological reconnoissance in central Washington|author1-first=Israel Cook|author1-last=Russell|author1-link=Israel Russell|series=Bulletin|volume=108|location=Washington, D.C.|publisher=United States Geological Service|year=1893|doi=10.3133/b108}}
;Edmond S. Meany : Meany wrote a series of articles across several issues of his Washington Historical Quarterly starting in 1917, that were collected in book form in 1923.
Unfortunately, after {{On AFD|Artesian, Washington}} (where Meany had "Gans" instead of "Gano") and {{On AFD|Ping, Washington}} (where Meany clearly gave an erroneous page number) it is clear that Meany has a high rate of typographic or transcription errors that have not been caught. Fortunately Meany cites his sources, albeit that some are manuscript collections of letters sent to him. Others are things like history books that are accessible to us directly. For safest results, check Meany against his own sources.
:* {{cite journal|journal=Washington Historical Quarterly|publisher=Washington State Historical Society|author1-link=Edmond S. Meany|author1-first=Edmond S.|author1-last=Meany|title=Washington Geographic Names|volume=8|issue=4|year=October 1917|pages=265–290|jstor=23908626}}
:* {{cite journal|journal=Washington Historical Quarterly|publisher=Washington State Historical Society|author1-link=Edmond S. Meany|author1-first=Edmond S.|author1-last=Meany|title=Origin of Washington Geographic Names|volume=9|issue=1|year=January 1918|pages=26–62|jstor=40474283}}
:* {{cite journal|journal=Washington Historical Quarterly|publisher=Washington State Historical Society|author1-link=Edmond S. Meany|author1-first=Edmond S.|author1-last=Meany|title=Origin of Washington Geographic Names|volume=9|issue=2|year=April 1918|pages=107–128|jstor=40474558}}
:* {{cite journal|journal=Washington Historical Quarterly|publisher=Washington State Historical Society|author1-link=Edmond S. Meany|author1-first=Edmond S.|author1-last=Meany|title=Origin of Washington Geographic Names|volume=9|issue=3|year=July 1918|pages=197–207|jstor=40474160}}
:* {{cite journal|journal=Washington Historical Quarterly|publisher=Washington State Historical Society|author1-link=Edmond S. Meany|author1-first=Edmond S.|author1-last=Meany|title=Origin of Washington Geographic Names|volume=9|issue=4|year=October 1918|pages=288–295|jstor=40474106}}
:* {{cite journal|journal=Washington Historical Quarterly|publisher=Washington State Historical Society|author1-link=Edmond S. Meany|author1-first=Edmond S.|author1-last=Meany|title=Origin of Washington Geographic Names|volume=10|issue=2|year=April 1919|pages=102–109|jstor=40474004}}
:* {{cite journal|journal=Washington Historical Quarterly|publisher=Washington State Historical Society|author1-link=Edmond S. Meany|author1-first=Edmond S.|author1-last=Meany|title=Origin of Washington Geographic Names|volume=10|issue=3|year=July 1919|pages=190–204|jstor=40473957}}
:* {{cite journal|journal=Washington Historical Quarterly|publisher=Washington State Historical Society|author1-link=Edmond S. Meany|author1-first=Edmond S.|author1-last=Meany|title=Origin of Washington Geographic Names|volume=11|issue=1|year=January 1920|pages=44–58|jstor=40473892}}
:* {{cite journal|journal=Washington Historical Quarterly|publisher=Washington State Historical Society|author1-link=Edmond S. Meany|author1-first=Edmond S.|author1-last=Meany|title=Origin of Washington Geographic Names|volume=12|issue=2|year=April 1921|pages=115–136|jstor=40473644}}
:* {{cite journal|journal=Washington Historical Quarterly|publisher=Washington State Historical Society|author1-link=Edmond S. Meany|author1-first=Edmond S.|author1-last=Meany|title=Origin of Washington Geographic Names|volume=13|issue=2|year=April 1922|pages=122–130|jstor=40428381}}
:* {{cite journal|journal=Washington Historical Quarterly|publisher=Washington State Historical Society|author1-link=Edmond S. Meany|author1-first=Edmond S.|author1-last=Meany|title=Origin of Washington Geographic Names|volume=14|issue=2|year=April 1923|pages=127–144|jstor=40474888}}
:* {{cite journal|journal=Washington Historical Quarterly|publisher=Washington State Historical Society|author1-link=Edmond S. Meany|author1-first=Edmond S.|author1-last=Meany|title=Origin of Washington Geographic Names|volume=14|issue=3|year=July 1923|pages=210–222|jstor=23908641}}
; Gazetteers : These are useful for telling whether an "unincorporated community" is a post-town/post-village or only a post office. Lippincott's, in particular, has a uniform scheme for this.
:* {{cite book|author1-last=Landes|author1-first=Henry|title=A Geographical Dictionary of Washington|series=Bulletin|volume=17|publisher=Washington Geological Survey|year=1917|location=Olympia, Washington}} ({{plainlink|https://www.dnr.wa.gov/Publications/ger_b17_geographic_dict_wa_1.pdf|part 1}} {{plainlink|https://www.dnr.wa.gov/Publications/ger_b17_geographic_dict_wa_2.pdf|part 2}})