Priest River, Idaho Demographics
Last night I checked what the census bureau has to say about Priest River.
Of course the figures are a bit out of date, since they take the census every 10 years, but I thought it was interesting.
Priest River City population: 1,754 – with 49% male and 51% female. When I was in High School here in the mid-60’s, the population was also 1,700 (and something.) So in spite of all the new homes built in Priest River over the past 40 years, the actual population has remained about the same.
(Perhaps because the children in those 60’s homes either moved into the new homes, or moved out of town, and new people took their places?)
Back to the statistics…
18.9% of the population was age 60 or older, while 28.9% were under 18.
436 families or individuals were living below the poverty level. That’s not good news.
As you can guess from looking around you, 97.5% are white – and 96.3% speak English as their only language.
Priest River has 762 housing units, with 90.8% occupied – Where are those 70 vacant housing units? Guess I need to go back to the comment about new building construction…
We’ve all known that Priest River has seen many new faces over the past years, but I was surprised to note that only 28.1% of Priest River’s residents were born in Idaho. Maybe because residents here use Spokane hospitals? But maybe not… read on.
Approximately half the population in 2000 was living in the same house as in 1995.
While Priest River was originally settled by Scandinavians and Italians, the population has shifted. Now 23% list German as their ancestry, while only 6.8% list Italian and 6% list Swedish or Norwegian. Following German was Irish, with 14.8% and English, with 12% of the population. AND 8.3% merely said “American.
Median household income for Priest River in 2000 was $26,765, while Bonner County overall came in at $32,803.
Not surprisingly in a timber-producing community, 23.9% percent of homes used wood heat.
Looking at these statistics was fun, but it would be even more fun to know the demographics of those Bonner County residents who call Priest River “home.” The Bonner County statistics take in the entire county, and since Sandpoint is so different from Priest River, they can’t mean a whole lot to us here on the West end of the County.
