Talk:Stafford, Virginia

About Stafford

Stafford Virginia is a great place to live. don't you think?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.93.119.233 (talk) 14:11, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

This page needs to be renamed to Stafford Courthouse (CDP) See Move Request below.

There is no such place as "Stafford" Virginia. It is only Stafford County, Virgina (which is another Wikipedia page). There is no locality in Stafford County with specific boundaries referred to as just "Stafford". The Census Bureau CDP location within Stafford County is called "Stafford Courthouse" as this article correctly states. The Stafford Courthouse area (at the center of Stafford County) is only 4.276 sq miles (per Census data). There are certainly no high schools within this area nor are the historical places that are listed here. When people say they live in Stafford (as I do all the time), they mean Stafford County. They never mean the Stafford Courthouse area of Stafford County. It is the same Fauquier, King George, Spotsylvania, Loudoun and many other counties in Virginia. People often drop the word "County" of their hometown, but it is not a separate place. They are still the counties. People use King George, VA or Stafford, VA on a postal letter. These are simply short for writing King George County, VA or Stafford County, VA.

There is no section/district/locality of Stafford County referred to as "Stafford". The "Municipalities and communities of Stafford County, Virginia, United States" box at the bottom of this page incorrectly lists the CDP as "Stafford" when it is actually "Stafford Courthouse" in all census data.

Nothing on this page is correct other that the statement that there is a CDP location called Stafford Courthouse CDP and population of the Stafford Courthouse CDP location within that 4.276 sq mile area. (Stafford County is approximately 267 thousand square miles, with a population of approximately 129 thousand people). Interstate 95 and the VRE (railway) do not run through the Stafford Courthouse CDP area. They do run through Stafford County (different page). Alecjacobryan (talk) 18:18, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus after 2 weeks of idle discussion Tiggerjay (talk) 08:12, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

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Stafford, Virginia → Stafford Courthouse, Virginia – Please see my previous comments on this talk section for this page. This page refers to Census Bureau CDP called Stafford Courthouse CDP. This page is incorrectly named Stafford, Virginia. "Stafford, Virginia" misleadingly refers to "Stafford County, Virginia" which is a different page. I have already deleted the information off the page that is not part of this CDP. I cannot change the title of the page. --Relisted Tyrol5 [Talk] 01:57, 11 January 2013 (UTC) Alecjacobryan (talk) 19:43, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support Seems straight forward. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:42, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

BDD - You are mistaken. I LIVE here. There is no town of Stafford. You can Google Map the name of any county in Virginia without the word county and get a result. The grey area on the Google Map is the Census CDP boundaries for Stafford Courthouse CDP. Alecjacobryan (talk) 02:51, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

You misunderstand how Google Maps processes cities versus counties. Latah, ID shows you a county, because there is no city or town in Idaho by that name. Boise, ID gives you a city; you have to type Boise County, ID to see the city. For Stafford, the gray area indicates government land (it's one of several color codes GM uses, such as green for parks, red for hospitals, and a sort of beige for colleges). Around that small complex of government buildings in Stafford, there are plenty of residential roads. So click the links I've given below. Don't just assume. Check the street view on the first, and there's clearly a town there. Whether you live there or elsewhere in the county, how do you think I'd address mail to someone there? --BDD (talk) 03:10, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

BDD - Respectfully, you are mistaken and don't understand the nuances here in Virginia. If you try to look up zip codes for "Stafford County" on the USPS site you will get zero returns. If you look up "Stafford, VA" you will get four returns (which is not complete for the County). If you look at a zip code map you will see that 22554 (what you and this article calls the zip code for the town of Stafford) covers over half of Stafford County. There is no independant zip code for the "town of Stafford" becasue it doesn't exist. In fact, zip codes 22405 and 22406 are in Stafford County but homes titled in these zip codes are titled as "Fredericksburg, VA" even though they are not in the independant City of Fredercicksburg. For that matter, 22407, and 22408 are also Fredericksburg, VA addresses and those two zip codes are in the County of Spotsylvania. Only 22401, 22402, and 22403 are actully in the City of Fredericksburg. (Fredericksburg is an independant incorporated city and is not within nor governed by any surrounding county). Unlike a state like Massachusetts, for example, where incorporated cities and towns fall within counties, most if not all incorporated cities in Virginia are independant and not within any county boundary or jurisdiction (e.g. Fredericksburg, Alexandria, and even the state capital of Richmond, VA). I found that odd when I moved here, but that's the way we roll in Virginia. There are absolutely no incorporated towns within Stafford County. We are therefore left to decide if "Stafford" Virginia describes a particular unincorporated community within Stafford County or is just slang for "Stafford County." If you examine the Stafford County maintained maps page of their website, you can look at the "Road Map with Subddivsions Map" link. This shows that area in question encompasses secions of two major subdivisions Austin Ridge (#6 on legend), and Emery Hills (#31 on legend). Nowhere on this map does it indicate a subdivision or section called "Stafford." If you look at the Election Map (the link is bad on the county site, the corect link is: http://stafford.va.us/DocumentCenter/View/1194) you will see that the area in quesion is part of the Hartwood District, precint # 402 which is called "Courthouse" on the election map and their poling place is the Courthouse Community Center. Again, no community/town/area just called "Stafford" in Stafford County. I would also like you to notice that even the Stafford County website just says "Stafford, Virginia" all over it. However, it is the Stafford County website and they are referring to the full 280 sq miles of Stafford County when they say "Stafford, VA". "Stafford," is simply short/slang for "Stafford County" (the WHOLE county), and the 4.3 sq miles referred to on this Wikipedia page referres to a Census CDP that the Census calls "Stafford Courthouse CDP" There are higher authorities in the world than Google Maps. Alecjacobryan (talk) 20:48, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Add on - You also prove my point with your Google Map links below. The City of Richmond link on Google Maps clearly shows the boundries of the city. The Stafford County link on Google Maps clearly shows the boundaries. The Stafford, VA link - NO BOUNDARIES. It is not a town. Case in point: Observe the link for Back Bay, MA on Google Maps. It looks similar to your link of Stafford, VA. Back Bay is neighborhood area in the City of Boston. Back Bay has a doted grey line boundary because Google recognizes it as known area of Boston. Now look at Hells Kitchen, NY. Again, not a town or even unincorporated community, it is a neighborhood area in Manhattan, but Google Maps finds it and puts the grey dotted line around it. No such lines around "Stafford, VA." Google does not recognize it as a boundaried neighborhood, town, unincorporated community. Now look at King George County, VA and King George, VA, this is more of an apples-to-apples comparison of Stafford, VA to Stafford County, VA in Google Maps. There is no town of King George, only King George County. The same is true for the Google Map examples of Spotsylvania, VA and Spotsylvania County, VA. Google will recognize both, but there is no town of Spotsylvania, only Spotsylvania County.

I believe I have presented enough evidence to prove my point. The only evidence for the opposition is their interpretation of Google Maps. This page (and its demographics) refer to Stafford Courthouse CDP. The words "Stafford, VA" should link to the "Stafford County, VA" site because the two names are used interchangeably.Alecjacobryan (talk) 00:48, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm well aware of how cities in Virginia work, having been born and raised there. Anyway, Back Bay and Hell's Kitchen are areas of large cities. A better test would be another unincorporated community, such as Viola, ID or, right there in Stafford County, White Oak, VA, which resemble the display for what Google calls Stafford. Maybe you're right, and that people there don't consider themselves to live in such a place; even so, I prefer natural disambiguation. CDPs can be fairly arbitrarily named. Wyndham, Virginia, for example, is named after a private subdivision, completely unrelated to any topographic place name in the area. --BDD (talk) 00:56, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, White Oak also refers to an area of Stafford County, but it is not an incorporated town. Yes, a lot of these area designations come about from private subdivisions. Aquia is a great example of that. Aquia is a gated community in Stafford County. They have their own private security force and everything, but it is not a town. It is just a massive private subdivision in Stafford County. In fact, Aquia is a great example of why you cannot rely on Google Maps to verify a township. Query "Aquia, VA" in Google Maps and you will see a pink shaded area with a grey dotted line around its borders indicating that it is a city or town. It is not. In fact, you will also notice that the whole area of Aquia surrounds the area on the map that we are arguing about, with the word "Stafford" within this border. It covers almost HALF THE COUNTY! Ridiculous. Aquia is big, but not that big, and it is certainly not an incorporated town. Aquia does not go any further South than Austin run. There is one way in and out of Aquia, through the security gate at Washington Drive located at the end of rte. 610. I agree with you that the naming of the Census CDP seems odd. I imagine that they came about because the areas within the counties were not populated. Therefore the Census distinguished between the populated areas within a county. However, as the population spread and connected the CDPs within the counties, it seems unnecessary to have them other than for a historical perspective on the area. However, THIS Wikipedia page refers to the Census Designated Place (CDP) and that is where the demographic data was pulled from. This data can be downloaded from the Census website. You will not find any county or state map that distinguishes borders around the 4.2 square miles referred to in the Census as Stafford County CDP and referred to on this page as Stafford, VA. Everyone, including the County of Stafford, uses “Stafford, VA” to refer to the entire County of Stafford not some made up town in the center of it.Alecjacobryan (talk) 01:11, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

*EVERYONE PLEASE LOOK AT THIS LINK: http://mcdc.missouri.edu/webrepts/pl94trends/Virginia_stplace2.html. It is referenced on this page. It is a complete list of cities, towns, and CDPs in Virginia. Please look up "Stafford." There is only Stafford Courthouse CDP. There is no Stafford town. This is because this 4.2 sq miles referred to on this page is a CDP, not a town. "Stafford, VA" refers to the COUNTY of Stafford (which you can plainly see on the Stafford County official website: http://stafford.va.us/ Alecjacobryan (talk) 01:21, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

That list is only of incorporated towns plus CDPs. No one here has suggested that Stafford is an incorporated town and Wikipedia has no rules disallowing articles on unincorporated locales. Also peruse WP:OFFICIALNAMES when you get a chance. —  AjaxSmack  02:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Nonsense. The town of Stafford is small, but it exists. Google Maps distinguishes between the town and the county. It doesn't recognize "Stafford Courthouse" (in fact, that seems to rather confuse it), and I don't know why we'd rename a town after its Census name unless that term was in common use. Nor is the city/county issue cause for renaming. Cases like Richmond and Richmond County are easily dealt with via hatnotes. It has previously been proposed that Stafford and Stafford be merged, but there was no agreement. So there's no good reason to move to a less WP:PRECISE name. --BDD (talk) 00:55, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. The town is real and, Stafford, like many other similar towns in Virginia (e.g. New Kent Courthouse), has gradually dropped usage of the suffix "Courthouse" over the years. Note that most recent the VDOT state map and county map both use "Stafford". (This 1936 county map uses "Stafford C.H." — the 1942 one uses "Stafford Court House" [sic] — but also uses "Aquia Tavern" for "Aquia".) The USGS Stafford Quadrangle map also uses "Stafford" for the town. The I-95 SR 630 exit sign reads "Stafford" for its control city. Except for the CDP name, "Stafford Courthouse" appears deprecated when referring to the town. —  AjaxSmack  02:22, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• You should check your links. The VDOT map link you provided clearly marks towns and cities in black font and counties are all grey font. Stafford is in grey as is Spotsylvania, Orange, Fauquier, and all the rest of the counties. Notice the word "County" is dropped from all of them on this map. Notice there are no borders on any map that anyone has cited for the four square miles you all seem to think is a town. Why no borders indicated on any map? BECAUSE IT IS NOT A TOWN. It is a census designated place in the middle of Stafford County. Stafford County (the entire county) is referred to as Stafford, Virginia INCLUDING THE COUNTY'S OWN WEBSITE!!!Alecjacobryan (talk) 01:11, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• You're looking in the wrong place. You're right about the county name in gray. Now look on the map to the right of that name and right of the blue line (I-95). You'll see a black dot inside of a white circle (denoting a county seat) straddling US 1. Next to it is a blue H for "hospital". To the right of that H is the name "Stafford" in black letters denoting the name of the town. The same duality can be seen on the map in the neighboring counties of Spotsylvania and King George with their namesake county seats. —  AjaxSmack  02:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

MOVE THIS PAGE (cont.)

SUPPORT - Regarding the final comment from  AjaxSmack  above - Please see the definition of a county seat at Princeton.edu. In particular see this excerpt:

A county seat is usually, but not always, an incorporated municipality. The exceptions include, but are not limited to, the county seats of counties that have no incorporated municipalities within their borders, such as Arlington County, Virginia and Howard County, Maryland.

Notice that one of the examples they use is Arlington County, Virginia. This is because this is the way counties in Virginia do things. I don't know of any county in Virginia with an incorporated municipality within its borders. That is not to say that it doesn't exist because I don't know that. However, I DO know that Stafford County does not.

I am in the process of contacting Stafford County officials on this matter. Once I have a word back from them, I will post it here request to move this along. Alecjacobryan (talk) 16:27, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Aquia Church haunting

I removed the unreferenced section on Aquia Church haunting as it didn't fit with the rest of the article and isn't addressed in the main article Aquia Church. Feel free to replace it once it better sourced. BaomoVW (talk) 01:18, 2 March 2018 (UTC)