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.
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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.
On The Road – PaulB – The Cascade Loop, Part 2Post + Comments (18)