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Home / Washington Business - September/October 2004 / Leavenworth: A Depression-Era Casualty Rises From the Ashes |
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Leavenworth: A Depression-Era Casualty Rises From the Ashes |
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Written On: September/October 2004 |
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Written By: By Daniel Brunell |
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Leavenworth’s spectacular scenery and Bavarian charm is well known. Much less known is the town’s phoenix-like rise from the depths of economic depression.
Leavenworth was on life support in the early 1960s. The downtown was in shambles. The store fronts were decrepit, marred by broken glass and chipped paint. The Great Depression hit Leavenworth hard. Thirty years later, the town had yet to recover from the blow. The prosperity of the post-war era bypassed Leavenworth. The town’s two great economic engines — the Great Northern Railway and the lumber industry — had left long ago, leaving a shattered town with few prospects or possibilities. A mass exodus of its residents was the result. Indeed, Leavenworth was on the path of many small rural towns of the day — a route of despair and depression.
The robust residents of Leavenworth would not allow their town to die without a fight. In 1962, the Leavenworth Chamber of Commence invited the Bureau of Community Development at the University of Washington to study possibilities for economic development within the area. The program titled LIFE (Leavenworth Improvement for Everyone) allowed the residents of Leavenworth to meet, debate, analyze, research and finally decide on the future for the town. The most promising and most controversial idea to come out of the LIFE program was the concept of developing a theme town. Different themes were kicked around, such as a turn-of-the-century theme and a western-town theme. However, several of the downtown property owners loved the idea of turning Leavenworth into a Bavarian village.
The Bavarian theme was controversial. Several other downtown property owners hated the idea. Despite this hostility within the community, a few businesses under the leadership of Ted Price and Robert Rodgers decided to take the risk and started transforming their little piece of Leavenworth into Bavaria.
Forty years after its metamorphosis, Leavenworth remains one of the most remarkable economic development stories in Washington state history. The town is alive. More than 3.5 million people visit the town annually, bringing $105 million into the local economy. Leavenworth has 23 weekends with a major festival and more than 370 events a year. It is regarded by many afficionados as one of the best tourist destinations in the Northwest.
Nevertheless, Leavenworth has no time to rest on its laurels. “Our goal is to keep what we have intact while expanding,” said Bill Taylor, executive director of the Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce. “We are constantly diversifying our tourism by including natural and agricultural tourism along with more cultural and art events.”
In order to diversify its appeal Leavenworth started Bird Fest, a weekend in May devoted to bird watching in the surrounding area. The town is geographically blessed with hundreds of thousands of publicly owned wilderness acres. This surrounding natural wonderland brings in a large number of ecotourists, hikers, rafters and skiers.
Capitalizing on eastern Washington’s new fame as a wine mecca, Leavenworth has added a number of music and wine oriented festivals to its mix of traditional German-themed festivals such as Mai Fest and the Autumn Leaf Festival. This increase in the number and diversity of festivals shows a town that is trying to keep the tourists coming.
Despite the fact that Leavenworth’s Bavarian ambience put it on the tourist map, many in town fear tourists might tire of the Bavarian theme. This is one of many challenges Leavenworth sees on the horizon.
Leavenworth is a town at the crossroads. The community has grown to the point where it has to make some tough decisions about economic growth and its future. One of the biggest problems is the lack of family- wage jobs in Leavenworth. As a result, the area is hemorrhaging young people at an alarming rate.
Most of Leavenworth’s jobs are in service positions related to tourism. Service work can be nice for students and retirees, but most of these jobs cannot support families. What makes this crisis even more acute are the area’s skyrocketing housing costs.
“There is not a lot of room left in the valley for development,” said Ken Marson, owner of Marson and Marson Lumber Company. “If we are to bring balance to our community, we need to make it more affordable for families.”
In addition, there are fears of Leavenworth becoming a playground for the rich, not unlike Aspen or Jackson Hole. Many in the community fear that if Leavenworth was to go down this road, many of the tourists would stop coming. They also worry that they may be priced out of the town they love.
Tourism in Leavenworth has just about reached it potential. What the town wants is another economic engine in the town. Leavenworth needs something to offset its unpredictable tourism economy. Residents want family-wage jobs. More than anything, they hope Leavenworth will be able to grow for the next 40 years.
A potential economic engine might already be at hand. The Physics Department at the University of Washington is spearheading an effort to build the National Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory under Mt. Cashmere, eight miles from Leavenworth. The main function of this lab would be to study neutrinos, interstellar materials that are collected to study distant stars. If built, the lab would be the premier research laboratory in the U.S. and only one of four in the entire world.
Mt. Cashmere provides the access, granite and space needed for this project. If this proposed lab was built, it would be a windfall for Leavenworth. The laboratory would employ 80 full-time staff with the adjoining visitor center employing 20-25 more. The lab would attract hundreds of visiting scientists and thousands of visiting students each year. Not surprisingly, Leavenworth is very excited at the prospects of this project.
“Not only would it be good for our community, but also something that is really beneficial to mankind,” Marson observed. “I can think of nothing more noble.”
The National Science Foundation is studying Mt. Cashmere and a half dozen other possible sites around the nation with construction slated to start in 2008. The lab would be another step for a town that redefined itself 40 years ago and is looking to do so again. For a town that has been through so much to redefine what it is, it might have to undergo another metamorphosis to keep its future vibrant. Whatever that path might be, Leavenworth has shown it has the fortitude to change and will continue being the little town that could.
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