Lester was a small town near Stampede Pass, just south of Snoqualmie Pass in King County, founded in 1892 by the Northern Pacific Railway (now the BNSF Railway ).
In their 1892 Annual Report, the Northern Pacific wrote: "A new yard has been constructed at Lester, on the Cascade Division, at the foot of the maximum grade, with brick roundhouse, turntable, suitable coal chute, and combination station."
In 1902, a series of railway-related fires burned more than 30,000 acres (120 km2) of timber, significantly hindering ongoing logging in the area.[1]
It is one of the few ghost towns in the U.S. state of Washington. History states that the town was originally named Deans after the Dean's Lumber Co., but after the establishment of a large depot, roundhouse, coal dock and other steam locomotive support facilities, was renamed "Lester" after Lester Hansacker, a telegraph operator with the Northern Pacific. While the origin of both names is unclear, the Northern Pacific's telegraph call for Lester was "DM," which lends credence to the Dean's Mill theory.
The logging industry in the area remained for many years, starting with Dean's Lumber Co. In 1948, Soundview Pulp Co. established a logging camp at Lester, and later Soundview was merged into the Scott Paper Company. The Scott camp was one of the last in King County, closing in 1978.
The town itself lasted until 1984, when mothballing of the rail line across Stampede Pass and legislation sponsored by the City of Tacoma, Washington, killed off the town. The rail line over Stampede Pass was reopened in 1996 by the BNSF Railway[2] and is still in use.
The area is now in the Tacoma watershed and is gated off, now only open to foot traffic though most of the buildings in the area have long since been burned. Nearby is Stampede Tunnel, at one time the largest tunnel in the country. It was built between 1886 and 1888 and is 1.89 miles (3.04 km) long.
Lester is located at ,[3] east of Enumclaw, Washington along the Green River and BNSF Railway line. Its elevation is 1,634 feet (498 m) above sea level.[4]