Leavenworth, WA

Leavenworth is a city in Chelan County, Washington, the entire town center is modelled on a Bavarian village. The first route across Stevens Pass was built by the Great Northern Railway in 1892. The townsite was across the Wenatchee River from Icicle and was named Leavenworth the same year the rail construction began. Captain Charles Leavenworth, president of the Okanogan Investment Company, purchased the land in the present-day downtown and laid the streets parallel to the new railroad tracks. The railroad construction was completed during the winter of 1893. Lafayette Lamb and his brother, Chauncery Lamb arrived in 1903 from Iowa to build the second largest sawmill in Washington state.


Leavenworth was officially incorporated on September 5, 1906. A small timber community, it became the headquarters of the Great North Railroad in the early 1900s. The railroad relocated to Wenatchee in the 1920s, greatly affecting Leavenworth's economy. The city struggled until 1962, when the Project LIFE (Leavenworth Improvement For Everyone) Committee was formed to transform the city into a mock Bavarian village to revitalize its economy.


Leavenworth is home to the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, which opened in 1995 and contains more than 5,000 nutcrackers dating from prehistoric to modern. The town hosts an annual Oktoberfest celebration and its famous annual Bavarian Christmas celebration.


Each year for the first three weekends in December, the town of Leavenworth comes alive with all things Christmas! Visitors come back year after year for the lighting of the village as it is transformed into a magical wonderland of lights. USA Today rated Leavenworth one of the USA's top 10 Christmas towns!





The road to Leavenworth was a journey from Portland, OR thru Yakima, WA and Wenatchee, WA. I had the pleasure to enjoy the great beauty the Northwest has to offer and was surprised by the windmill farms in Klickitat County. Did you know the installed wind power capacity in Washington has seen strong growth in recent years and Washington now ranks among the top ten states with the most wind power installed. Wind power accounted for 4.6% of total electricity generated in Washington during 2010.