Philomath College

About this property

Philomath ( fi-LOH-mith) is a city in Benton County, Oregon, United States. It was named for Philomath (Greek, "love of learning") College. The population was 5,838 as of the 2023 census population estimates. It is part of the Corvallis Metropolitan Statistical Area. Philomath was named after the Philomath College which was founded in 1867 by the United Brethren Church. The college opened its doors in October of that year, with enrollment the first day at about 100. The first teachers were Joseph Hannon, who acted as principal, and Elisha Woodward, teacher in the primary department. The name of the college and city was derived from two Greek words meaning "lover of learning". The city was incorporated on October 20, 1882. The college closed in 1929 due to a dramatic decline in enrollment. Philomath is 2 miles (3 km) west of Corvallis on U.S. Route 20. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.05 square miles (5.31 km2), of which 1.86 square miles (4.82 km2) is land and 0.19 square miles (0.49 km2) is water. This region experiences warm (but not hot) and dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above 71.6 °F (22.0 °C). According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Philomath has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated Csb on climate maps. As of the 2020 census, Philomath had a population of 5,350. The median age was 34.9 years. 22.5% of residents were under the age of 18 and 13.2% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 94.1 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 92.2 males age 18 and over. 99.7% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.3% lived in rural areas. There were 2,102 households in Philomath, of which 31.4% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 46.3% were married-couple households, 16.3% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 26.9% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 24.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. There were 2,270 housing units, of which 7.4% were vacant. Among occupied housing units, 56.2% were owner-occupied and 43.8% were renter-occupied. The homeowner vacancy rate was 0.7% and the rental vacancy rate was 5.4%. As of the census of 2010, there were 4,584 people, 1,733 households, and 1,203 families living in the city. The population density was 2,464.5 inhabitants per square mile (951.5/km2). There were 1,837 housing units at an average density of 987.6 per square mile (381.3/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 91.1% White, 0.7% African American, 1.2% Native American, 1.0% Asian, 2.4% from other races, and 3.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.7% of the population.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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