Merritt, Washington — Few Houses in a Very Large Pass

Merritt sits along Nason Creek west of Leavenworth, squeezed into the mountain corridor leading toward Stevens Pass.

The Great Northern Railway put a name here for a practical reason: mountain railroads needed workers, maintenance points and identifiable places along routes where terrain offered very few alternatives. Merritt was named for a local railroad agent.

U.S. 2 later inherited much of the same geographic logic. Highway and railroad share the upper Nason Creek valley because the mountains are not especially interested in offering another easy route.

A handful of homes still occupy the corridor.

Merritt's scale is honest about its surroundings. The mountains provide most of the architecture; transportation takes the usable valley floor; the community fits into whatever room is left.