Leavenworth, Washington

Leavenworth, Washington
City
Leavenworth's main street reflects its modelling on a Bavarian village
Location of Leavenworth, Washington
Coordinates: 47°35′47″N 120°39′55″W / 47.59639°N 120.66528°W / 47.59639; -120.66528Coordinates: 47°35′47″N 120°39′55″W / 47.59639°N 120.66528°W / 47.59639; -120.66528
Country	United States
State	Washington
County	Chelan
Government
• Mayor	Cheri Kelley Farivar
Area[1]
• Total	1.25 sq mi (3.24 km2)
• Land	1.23 sq mi (3.19 km2)
• Water	0.02 sq mi (0.05 km2)
Elevation	1,171 ft (357 m)
Population (2010)[2]
• Total	1,965
• Estimate (2012[3])	1,989
• Density	1,597.6/sq mi (616.8/km2)
Time zone	PST (UTC-8)
• Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC-7)
ZIP code	98826
Area code	509
FIPS code	53-38845
GNIS feature ID	1521981[4]
Website	www.cityofleavenworth.com

Leavenworth is a city in Chelan County, Washington, United States. It is part of the Wenatchee−East Wenatchee Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,965 at the 2010 census.^[5] The population was 1,970 at 2012 Estimate from Office of Financial Management. The entire town center is modeled on a Bavarian village.

History

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.^[6] Owen and Pauline Watson, owners of a business on Front Street, formed the committee after visiting Solvang, California in 1958 and thought it was an excellent idea for Leavenworth.

Leavenworth is home to the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, which opened in 1995 and contains more than 5,000 nutcrackers dating from prehistoric to modern.^[7] Leavenworth hosts an annual Oktoberfest celebration.^[8] Leavenworth's transformation into a theme town was inspired, and assisted, by Solvang, California. Later the Washington town of Winthrop followed Leavenworth's example and adopted a town theme.^[9]

In November 2007 Good Morning America went to Leavenworth for Holiday Gifts for the Globe where GMA helped light up the town for the Christmas Holiday. Leavenworth was also named the Ultimate HolidayTown USA by A&E.^[10]

Geography

Leavenworth's geographic coordinates are 47°35′47″N 120°39′55″W / 47.59639°N 120.66528°W / 47.59639; -120.66528.^[11]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.25 square miles (3.24 km²), of which, 1.23 square miles (3.19 km²) is land and 0.02 square miles (0.05 km²) is water.^[1]

Geology

Leavenworth sits on the southeast side of the North Cascades collage, which is a group of terranes that accreted to North America all about the same time. Marine fossils indicate that the terranes were probably a group of islands originating out in the South Pacific hundreds of million years ago. The terranes landed on North America about 90mya(million years ago) in the middle of the Cretaceous period. As they smashed into their new home they were a puzzle of north- south slices.  As accretion continued they were cut into horizontal (east-west) slices.             

During the Eocene epoch, about 50 mya the area was once again cut into vertical slices,creating among others, the Leavenworth fault and the Entiat fault.  In between these two faults the Chiwaukum graben was created. ( A graben is a large block of rock that drops between two normal faults).  This graben is about 12 miles wide and trends northwest from Wenatchee for about 50 miles. As the graben dropped, it immediately began to fill with clastic sediment from the surrounding hills,creating the Chumstick formation.  About 30 mya in the Oligocene epoch the Chiwaukum graben underwent compressional deformation creating several folds in the region, which are visible today. Leavenworth is on the western edge of the graben, in fact the Leavenworth fault runs through the western edge of town. The middle Cretaceous was when the area to the west and southwest of Leavenworth was created, this was the uplift of the Mt.Stuart batholith, forming the granite rock which we see today in Icicle Ridge and Tumwater mountain.           

During the Pleistocene and on into the Holocene epoch Leavenworth would have been a cold place to live.  An alpine glacier originating from the southwest in the Mt. Stuart range made its way to where the town is today. Leavenworth actually sits on the terminal moraine of that glacier. If you take a drive through the residential areas of town you can see glacier erratics that originated 20 miles away up the Icicle valley near Mt.Stuart.           

About 19,000 years ago a large rock slide dammed the Columbia river near Rock Island (just south of Wenatchee). The temporary dam, in conjunction with one of the Lake Missoula floods, caused the water to flow back up the Wenatchee valley where it was stopped by the glacier at Leavenworth. As the leading edge of the glacier interacted with the flood, ice rafts formed carrying granite erratics from the Stuart batholith ending up in the town of Dryden about 15 miles down valley from Leavenworth. As the glacier retreated, the south side of Leavenworth was a lake dammed up by the moraine. As you cross over the bridge, entering town from the east you can see where the Wenatchee River cuts through the moraine today.   

Climate

December snow in Leavenworth

Demographics

As of the census^[2] of 2010, there were 1,965 people, 908 households, and 500 families residing in the city. The population density was about 1,598 inhabitants per square mile (617.0 /km²). There were 1,241 housing units at an average density of about 1,009 per square mile (389.6 /km²). The racial makeup of the city was 92.9% White, 0.4% African American, 0.5% Native American, 0.6% Asian, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 3.9% from other races, and 1.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 10.8% of the population.

There were 908 households of which about 24% had children under the age of 18 living with them, about 42% were married couples living together, about 10% had a female householder with no husband present, 3% had a male householder with no wife present, and about 45% were non-families. About 37% of all households were made up of individuals and about 20% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.16 and the average family size was 2.84.

The median age in the city was about 42 years. About 20% of residents were under the age of 18; about 8% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 25% were from 25 to 44; about 27% were from 45 to 64; and about 20% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 46.7% male and 53.3% female.

Transportation

Downtown Leavenworth, 1,500 feet (460 m) below, as viewed from the adjacent Tumwater Mountain on an August afternoon

• Leavenworth has Amtrak rail service at Leavenworth "Icicle" Station which recently re-opened with a new station in September 2009.
• Leavenworth also has a stop for Northwestern Trailways bus at SR2 & Icicle Road.^[15] This bus can be cross-ticketed with Amtrak Thruway.^[16] This Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach service operates as redundant service along the Empire Builder route between Seattle and Spokane to add extra capacity and provide service during other times of the day. The route also serves Stevens Pass, Skykomish, and Monroe. The thruway motorcoach service is used when normal rail service encounters disruptions. E.g. a closure of Cascade Tunnel.
• The Leavenworth Free Trolley that circulates between SR2 & Icicle Road and the Safeway ended in September 2011.^[17]
• Link Transit has a Dial-a-Ride service. The service requires at least a one-day advance notice.^[18]
• Leavenworth Taxi also has a shuttle that operates within the greater Leavenworth area.^[19] It stops at both the Northwestern Trailways/Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach bus stop and the Amtrak rail station.

See also

• Tudorbethan architecture

Notes

Geology references

• http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/wgmt/pacnw/nc/chelan2.html
• http://192.211.16.13/curricular/MN/swauk_formation.htm
• http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/geologyandart/Central%20WA%20Field%20Trip%20Guide.pdf (PDF)
• http://192.211.16.13/curricular/MN/chiwaukum_schist.htm
• A geological trip along Snoqualmie, Swauk, and Stevens Pass Highways. Washington state geology department, 1963
• Northwest Exposures. David Alt and Donald W. Hyndman
• Roadside Geology of Washington. David Alt and Donald W. Hyndman

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Leavenworth, Washington.

• City of Leavenworth website
• Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce
• Leavenworth, Washington on the Open Directory Project

v t e Municipalities and communities of Chelan County, Washington, United States County seat: Wenatchee Cities Cashmere Chelan Entiat Leavenworth Wenatchee CDPs Chelan Falls Manson South Wenatchee Sunnyslope Unincorporated communities Ardenvoir Blewett Chiwaukum Chumstick Coles Corner Dryden Grant Road Addition Holden Village Kenroy Lucerne Malaga Merritt Mission Square Monitor Pearcot Peshastin Plain Stehekin Telma Wenatchee Heights Winton Indian reservation Colville Indian Reservation‡ Footnotes ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties