Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near West Madras Madras, OR

Madras is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Oregon, in Central Oregon where U.S. Route 26 and U.S. Route 97 intersect.

The original plat for Madras was filed on July 18, 1902, by Scandinavian immigrant John A. Palmehn, for whom the town was originally named 'Palmain', a name rejected by the U.S. Postal Service over its similarity to a post office named Parmen, after which the name 'Madras' was adopted.

Madras was originally called 'The Basin' after the circular valley the city sits in, and it is unclear whether the name Madras honors the cotton fabric of that name or the city of Madras, now Chennai, in India.

Madras was incorporated as a city in 1911, and the 2020 census counted 7,456 people there, living in 2,706 households, with 2,878 housing units.

An Army Air Corps base, Madras Army Air Field, was built nearby during World War II, and the airfield now serves as the Madras Municipal Airport.

Homesteads about 5 miles north of the city on Agency Plains were based on dryland wheat, and the city sits at an elevation of 2,241 feet in a semi-arid steppe climate.

The centerline of the path of totality of the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, ran through the center of Madras, and the town prepared for an influx of about 100,000 visitors for the eclipse.

Madras is home to the Erickson Aircraft Collection, a privately owned collection of airworthy vintage aircraft open to the public, and the Jefferson County Fair is held on county property in Madras in late July.

In 2003, a Scotts Company field trial of genetically modified bentgrass near Madras resulted in pollen spreading the Roundup-resistant transgene over about 120 square miles, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined the grower $500,000 for non-compliance in 2007.

Madras is the birthplace of actor River Phoenix and the hometown of Major League Baseball player Jacoby Ellsbury.