Ephrata

Ephrata is the name of several places in the United States of America, named for Biblical Ephrath. The modern Israeli settlement-city of Efrata in the West Bank occupies a site assumed to be near the ancient one.

Places

Other

Ephrata station

Ephrata is a train station on Amtrak's Empire Builder line in Ephrata, Washington. The station and parking are owned by the City of Ephrata, Washington, while the track and platforms are owned by BNSF Railway.Northwestern Trailways provides inter-city bus transport next to the station while local transit is provided by Grant County Transit.

Boardings and Alightings

Notes and references

External links

Ephrata, Pennsylvania

Ephrata (English: /ˈɛfrətə/ EF-rə-tə, Pennsylvania Dutch: Effridaa) is a borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, 38 miles (61 km) south east of Harrisburg and about 57 miles (92 km) west by north of Philadelphia. It is named after Ephrath, a biblical town in what is now Israel. Ephrata's sister city is Eberbach, Germany, the city where its founders originated. In its early history, Ephrata was a pleasure resort and an agricultural community.

Ephrata's population has steadily grown over the last century. In 1900, 2,452 people lived there, in 1910, 3,192, and by 1940, the population had increased to 6,199. The population was 13,394 at the 2010 census. Ephrata is the most populous borough in Lancaster County.

History

Ephrata is noteworthy for having been the former seat of the Mystic Order of the Solitary, a semimonastic order of Seventh-Day Dunkers. The community, which contained both men and women, was founded by Johann Conrad Beissel in 1732.

Many of the members were well-educated; Peter Miller, second prior of the monastery, translated the Declaration of Independence into seven languages, at the request of Congress. At the period of its greatest prosperity the community contained nearly 300 persons.