Two subdivisions in Philomath are getting street name fixes and one of them corrects an error that’s been hiding in plain sight over the past few years.
At Millpond Crossing, Bullback Street is being renamed Head Rig Street. Philomath City Manager Chris Workman said the original subdivision design called for two east-west streets — Head Rig on the north side and Bullback on the south. When the subdivision was redesigned and the neighborhood park moved, only one through street was needed, so the northern street (Head Rig) was eliminated while the southern one (Bullback) remained.
That’s where the twist comes in. Workman said whoever selected the street names was going for timber industry references, and it turned out Bullback wasn’t actually a real term from that world — it was a typo.
“Bullback isn’t really a timber reference,” Workman said. “They kind of went with it because it was on the map and just kind of rolled through it.”
Workman isn’t certain what the name was supposed to be — pullback has been thrown around but that’s not really a timber term either. In my mind, I suppose it’s possible that it was supposed to be haulback.
Rather than let the error stand, Workman said he attached a condition to the subdivision’s replat requiring the name be changed to Head Rig — an actual timber term referring to the first saw blade that cuts into a log at a mill.
“It was more just an opportunity to fix a term that doesn’t really have a timber reference to one that did,” he said.
The Philomath City Council is scheduled to consider the Bullback-to-Head Rig change at its meeting Sept. 14.
The second name change, at Westbrook’s Phase II, is more of a paperwork correction than a redo. Emerald Drive is being formalized as Jade Place after the Benton County surveyor flagged a discrepancy between the county’s survey maps and the city’s GIS road maps. Workman said the postal address for the street is already Jade, but the original recorded survey map lists it as Emerald, so the fix brings the survey into agreement with what residents already use as their address. The street’s name itself isn’t changing — just the paperwork behind it.
Because people already live on Jade Place, Workman said the city opted to route that change through the Planning Commission before it reaches the City Council, giving residents a chance to ask questions, while the still-unbuilt Bullback Street is heading straight to the council. The Planning Commission is scheduled to take up the Emerald-to-Jade correction Sept. 21, followed by the City Council on Oct. 12.
Workman said street renamings are uncommon in Philomath — this is the first he’s handled in his years with the city — and usually stem from discrepancies between maps rather than any larger controversy. He noted the city does check new subdivision street names against Benton County 911 dispatch records to avoid duplicates that could confuse emergency responders.
2. Millpond momentum
While we’re on the subject of Millpond, the next phase could get underway as soon as this month, Workman said, as the developer wraps up the remaining items tied to Phase 2.
Workman said the vast majority of Phase 2’s punch list has been completed, but a handful of construction items — including paving on 16th Street and connecting some storm lines — are being held until the start of Phase 3 rather than finished at the tail end of Phase 2. He said that’s mostly a matter of logistics and financing, since the pipes and paving in question actually fall within the Phase 3 footprint.
“There’s some financial and logistical reasons why some of these items need to happen with the Phase 3 infrastructure happening at the same time,” Workman said, pointing to Chapel Drive as an example — when storm pipes are installed there, that stretch will need to be repaved anyway, so the city is timing the 16th Street paving to happen at the same time rather than bringing pavers out twice and disrupting traffic on two separate occasions.
“That will just be one project,” he said, adding that the bonding, construction agreement and infrastructure plan for Phase 3 will need to cover that work.
Workman said most of the lot line adjustments tied to Phase 2 have also been resolved with a few still in progress. He said the city will hold a deposit to continue working with the remaining property owners to cover the cost of appraisals, legal filings and recordings.
“Again, the storm lines have been taken care of,” Workman said. “There’s only just a couple handful of really small infrastructure things that need to happen that will be done with the beginning of Phase 3.”
Workman said developer Levi Miller has been encouraged to attend the Sept. 14 City Council meeting along with the new development team now working on Phase 3, including the new general contractor and real estate agents.
“I’ve encouraged him to bring kind of the new development team that’s going to be working on Phase 3 to introduce themselves to the council and really try to kind of turn the page from Phase 2 to Phase 3,” Workman said, adding that he’d also like to see the team make a stronger case for the benefits Phase 3 brings, including the townhomes and a long-awaited neighborhood park.
Workman noted that residents in Phases 1 and 2 have been waiting on that park for some time. He also pointed to the townhomes planned for Phase 3 as a potentially more affordable option for buyers who can’t afford a single-family home on a standard-sized lot in Philomath.
3. Black icons
Oregon Black Pioneers, the Portland-based nonprofit that has an established connection to Philomath, has launched a new online project called Black Icons of Oregon to recognize contemporary Black Oregonians who have made a difference in their communities.
Locally, Oregon Black Pioneers Executive Director Zachary Stocks spoke at the July 2022 dedication of the Shipley Family Homestead historical marker at Newton Creek Park, honoring Reuben and Mary Jane Shipley, early Black homesteaders who donated land to establish what’s now Mount Union Cemetery. The organization also brought programming to Philomath, including a Black pioneer women’s presentation and a Buffalo Soldiers program with a film screening and Q&A.
The new initiative grew out of requests from the community to honor people while they’re still around to appreciate it. Oregon Black Pioneers has launched a new way to honor Black Icons of Oregon, in response to public requests to note and acknowledge lesser known people who have made a difference in Oregon’s African American community.
Stocks said community members expressed a need to “give people their flowers” while they’re still here, and called Black Icons of Oregon the organization’s way of creating a digital space for people to recognize those contemporary changemakers. He noted the group’s usual history programs tend to focus on earlier, more familiar stories, so this offers room for more recent Black history.
Among the early honorees are Booker T. Pannell, the second Black person ever elected mayor of an Oregon town (Shaniko), and Geraldine Hammond, Salem’s first Black school principal in 1976.
The public can submit tributes at oregonblackpioneers.org/black-icons-of-oregon.
(Brad Fuqua is publisher/editor of the Philomath News. He can be reached at News@PhilomathNews.com).
