Hi. I drove past these T-shaped walls yesterday:
They are unused ruins now, although all perfectly intact, maybe 15 feet high, with mysterious 6" round holes through each wall, which are explained by their interesting history as WWII production facilities belonging to a nearby research lab: https://rroc.cfans.umn.edu/about/twalls
Would it be appropriate to add this information somehow to OSM? I found it frustrating when I drove by, that I looked into OSM to find out what they were, but found nothing except the mapped existence of the walls.
I imagine maybe all the walls should have a relation, which could be tagged with information, maybe including the above link, and something like historic:ruin. But I am a newbie mapper and thoughts I’d ask for advice first. Thanks for any thoughts!
I guess you can add this link as url= at each barrier=wall object?
I would not create a relation.
1 Like
My hesitancy at doing that is that this seems to contravene my (beginners) interpretation of " One feature, one OSM element". The url and historical info belongs to the set of walls as a whole. The separate walls are parts of one larger entity, in the same way that if a factory consisted of separate buildings, we’d group them somehow, maybe in an area, to denote a single commercial operation.
I suppose part of my vision that I haven’t articulated, is that in my mind it would be nice if renderers were able in theory to display a name for this set of walls, maybe incorporating the original name: “Gopher Ordnance Works (ruins)”, and something clickable that could send users to that url.
If you don’t think a relation is appropriate, is an area around them?
If the answer is still no, I shall happily accept your advice, thank you!
As far as I can see these T-walls are just a small part of the whole abandoned production plant. There are lots of other ruins, abandoned railways and the like.
Another even more prominent object is the group of 5 chimeys described in the Wikipedia article about Gopher Ordnance Works.
So any relation named “Gopher Ordnance Works” should include the whole site, not only a small part of it.
I could imagine drawing an area enclosing these walls and tag the area with historic=ruins + ruins=factory (or ruins=production_plant), add your link to it and description=Part of former Gopher Ordnance Works. As this part of the site does not have a name obviously you should not create one just for the purpose of seeing it on any map.
Next time you are there you can check the rest of the site and map the whole lot …
and don’t forget to map the plane just crossing 170th Street East a bit to the south of your object … 
4 Likes
Acknowledged. Huge thanks to both of you for the thoughts. I pushed an edit earlier today, including per-wall tags (historic:ruins, ruins:industrial) as inspired by Mateusz_Konieczny, and just now have updated an enclosing area to do exactly as Mikke suggests.
I’m sad that my renderer won’t display a suggestive name as I drive by, but I understand why that isn’t the goal. Huge thanks to you both!
The Gopher Ordnance Works in the original state and the remaining T-walls would be a wonderful addition to OpenHistoricalMap, which is currently blank in this area apart from some railroad tracks.
As for OSM, the area you added could still be tagged with a name=* based on how people usually refer to the structures collectively. From the source you linked to:
The concrete structures along Dakota County Road 46 are loosely known as the “T” wall structures; they offered the primary support for solvent recovery buildings. These buildings were known as the 214 Solvent Recovery Houses.
The ruins could be something like name=214 Solvent Recovery Houses loc_name=Gopher Ordnance Works T-Walls without getting too far into describing the site.
I did not read this as a name for this area but yes, why not.
It is always a good idea to wait for a couple of days after putting up a question in the forum. Not every participant is checking the new topics every day and/or has time to answer immediately. Giving yourself some time may save you double work.
2 Likes
on the other hand waiting too long often results in discussion without any action being taken
