Philip Gearhart was a pioneer settler on Clatsop Plains, and on part of his donation land claim is now located the beach resort of Gearhart. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1810, arrived in Oregon in 1848, and settled in Clatsop County in 1850 when he bought the squatter's claim of Marion Thompson. Gearhart then filed his donation land claim on the property. He died in September 1881, and about 1889 the original claim was sold to Marshall Kinney. Kinney was one of the incorporators of the Astoria and South Coast Railway, completed from Youngs Bay to Seaside in July 1890, and on August 21 he filed the plat of Gearhart Park. The railroad station used this form until 1907, when it was changed to one word. Gearhart post office was established on June 11, 1897.