On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
PaulB
Welcome to stage 2 of “Washington’s Ultimate Road Trip,” the Cascade Loop. Today, we’ll be visiting a town called Leavenworth. The town, like many western towns, was created because of the railroad. When the railroad was relocated to Wenatchee in 1925, the town was badly affected, as lumber mills and stores closed. In 1962, the town partnered with the University of Washington to see if they could come up with a strategy to bring the town back to life.
They ultimately decided to make the town a “theme town,” loosely based on an idealized version of a Bavarian town, with major buildings, hotels, and shops all remodeled to fit the theme. In the 1990s, the town took things to the next level, adding various festivals, most notably a Maifest, an Oktoberfest, and a month-long holiday celebration at the end of the year, with lights, concerts, caroling, Santa Claus, etc. My visit to the town coincided with Maifest, complete with a costume parade, Maypole dances, Bernese Mountain dogs, a bell-ringing concert, and an Alphorn concert.
Unfortunately, the town did not see fit to provide any festival food booths or carts, so I had to take a break to get lunch and, hence, missed the Alphorn performance, much to my regret. Here’s a link to a 39-second excerpt from a performance two years ago that was likely almost identical to what I would have heard had I stayed (and starved).
This is the third theme town that I’ve visited on vacation this past couple of years. The first was Port Townsend, in the Olympic Peninsula, which has a Victorian theme. The second is Leavenworth, with a Bavarian theme. And the third, is Winthrop, which is also on the Cascade Loop and which you’ll see a few pictures of in a later posting, which has an old mining town theme. Of these three, I think that Leavenworth is the most determinedly tourist-driven.
Note: You can see full-size versions of these photos here.
A view of the town’s main street, where you can see the Bavarian influence pretty clearly. You can see the Maypole in the lower far right of the picture. Across the street, and out of the frame, is the town’s central park and pavilion where most of its concerts take place.
A better view of the Maypole and of the mountains that border the town to the west. The booths sheathed in white plastic in the lower right were there for a local art fair. This early in the morning, the fair wasn’t yet open.
The town’s main “wilkommen” wagon.
The Wenatchee River flows through the town, and the town has a lovely waterfront park that parallels the river. The bridge in the picture connects the town (on the left) to Blackbird Island (on the right).
The next few pictures are all of the costumed parade along the town’s main street. The crowd was mostly to the right of this picture, and I’d estimate it to be a few hundred people. Maifest isn’t quite as popular as Oktoberfest or the holiday celebrations.
Yes, the Alphorns really are that big, although surprisingly light.
Apparently, the Bernese Mountain Dog Club of Greater Seattle is a regular participant at Leavenworth festivals. The dogs were just as friendly as could be, and were happy to be greeted and petted by the crowd.
This is a smaller version of the larger Maypole visible in the earlier pictures. The young ladies engaging in the Maypole dance were part of a dance academy.
The last two pictures are of a regional dance troupe performing a traditional Maypole dance around the larger Maypole. The dance was quite elaborate and also fairly lengthy. At this point in the dance, they haven’t yet begun dancing with the Maypole ribbons.
In this picture, they’ve dropped their garlands and are a little more than halfway done with the dance. You can see the ribbons entwined about the upper half of the pole. And yes, they did continue dancing until they had used up the entire ribbon lengths.
OzarkHillbilly
Looks like fun.
WereBear
What fun pictures :)
As someone with German heritage, I’m familiar with the many waves of immigrants, which turn up with high influence in unusual places. German-Americans created much of the Christmas/Winter Solstice celebrations, as we have them today.
And, you know, beer. Some of my best friends celebrate beer, while it never appealed to me. Didn’t get that gene.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: Germans are serious about their fun, too.
In a Goethe kind of way :) of course. It’s not The Fun Times of Young Werther.
WereBear
To further my history anecdata, the Great War, then WWII, saw two waves of anti-German sentiment in the US. Leading to name changes, etc.
Not as bad as the Irish, as a “white” group, but a surprising number of people went underground on it.
J.
If I didn’t know that was Washington, I’d think you were in Bavaria. Great photos!
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: Lots of folks with German ancestry here in Misery, especially in the wine country along the Missouri River. They settled there because of the fertile soil but also because it reminded them of the Rhineland.The Oktoberfest in Herman is quite the tourist draw, which is why even tho I have spent more than a little time there, I’ve never been to the festival..
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: And then there is Helen, Georgia!
HinTN
Admittedly, it was years ago that I visited Port Townsend and things may have changed. It was a very Victorian town by architecture because of it’s history. It was wealthy because it was the port of call for shipping to that part of the world. Sailing ships couldn’t navigate into Puget Sound so they docked at the closest port. Steam changed all that and Port Townsend became a sleepy little backwater in a drop dead gorgeous location.
Thanks for the visit to Bavaria in the PNW.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Herman and Helen sitting in a tree….
Pete Mack
@WereBear:
In Leavenworth it wasn’t immigrants. It was a tourism plan.
3Sice
Did you stop in Coles Corner?
This is on the eastern approach to Stevens Pass. The railroad built a new Cascade Tunnel which is why the alignment was moved over to Chumstick.
cascadeloop.com/wellington-train-disaster
opiejeanne
@Pete Mack: I was about to say that. I was a little disappointed when I learned that it was a decision that had nothing to do with immigrants and just wanting something to set the town apart from other small towns in the area.
Emily68
At Christmas, Leavenworth is all lit up with about a billion Christmas lights. Some years it’s even snowy and really fun to look at.
In years past, there were Nordic ski races on the golf course in Leavenworth, but now you’ve got to go all the way to Winthrop for Nordic skiing and ski racing.
beckya57
Leavenworth is a fun town, though does get crowded on weekends. The restaurants are also mostly German, and some are pretty good, though our favorite oddly enough is a South American one called South. There’s one in Wenatchee also. Really great food that’s a little different from Mexican. Another fun thing to do in the area is raft the Wenatchee River, which is Class III (exciting but not scary). Go in spring or fall; hot and crowded in summer. We love Winthrop and Pt Townsend too. Great whale watching out of PT with Puget Sound Express.
chopper
@Emily68:
the ski hill at the edge of town still has x-country trails. i was up there not too long ago.
Emily68
@chopper: Thanks.
Bob in P/L
@HinTN: I was going to write saying this, but you sort of covered it. Port Townsend is different than Winthrop and Leavenworth because what it is today is what it was ~150 years ago. Leavenworth was a logging town that adopted a German theme to become a tourist town. Prior to 1972 Winthrop looked like any other 1950’s style town and when Highway 20 across the North Cascades was nearing completion the town decided to put faux fronts on the buildings and wooden sidewalks to make it appear to be a “Western” town. Fun nonetheless, but Port Townsend (aka PT to us locals) is not so much a theme town with its architecture, but what it has always been.
Sister Golden Bear
Thanks for inspiring me for another potential roadtrip. Looking to do something in September.