Leavenworth, Washington — Bavaria Was a Business Plan

Leavenworth did not rediscover a forgotten Bavarian heritage.

It invented one because the local economy was in trouble.

The town had grown around the Great Northern Railway and timber. When railroad operations moved and the sawmill closed, jobs and businesses disappeared.

During the 1960s, local leaders tried something audacious.

Downtown buildings were remodeled with alpine facades inspired by Bavarian villages. The Cascade Mountains supplied a convincing backdrop. Festivals and Christmas events followed.

It worked.

The manufactured theme became so successful that it eventually overshadowed the railroad-and-timber town underneath it.

Modern Leavenworth now manages the opposite problem: crowds, traffic and housing pressure from a tourism economy vastly larger than its permanent population.

The mountains are authentic.

The lederhosen were economic development.