The Reincarnated Town

The death of the logging industry meant the death of Leavenworth, Washington, until it came back…as something completely different.

Starting last November, the SSCS Blog took its first annual trip to the snow, and guess what? It’s that time of year again!

Last November we traveled to nationally-known home of the 1980 Winter Olympics, Lake Placid, New York. This week, we’re heading to the opposite side of the country, specifically to the Pacific Northwest, even more specifically to Leavenworth, Washington.

Last year our post on Lake Placid spotlighted skiing and other winter sports. Leavenworth, while also in the middle of a winter wonderland, and with skiing definitely part of the mix, emphasizes a different aspect of its personality. You see, the town died and came back—as something else entirely.

Leavenworth is only a two-hour drive east from the Seattle Metropolitan area, but it might as well be a thousand miles away. That’s because it’s located on the eastern side of the Cascades, a heavily forested mountain range that gave birth to the second largest sawmill in the state, in 1903, which in turn facilitated the birth of Leavenworth.

By the late 1950’s however, the logging industry was starting to die and along with it, Leavenworth. So the town’s leaders—in a move that sounds like something out of a Hallmark Christmas Movie—decided re-invent the town as a “Bavarian Swiss Alpine Village” and become a tourist attraction in one of the unlikelier parts of the state. It worked. The town was saved!

Like any hub of tourist activity, there’s plenty of information available about what to do and see in Leavenworth that we don’t need to revisit. But we will say that it looks to have a pretty great Oktoberfest, as you might expect. And if a biergarten isn’t really for you, there’s a sausage garten that looks kind of intriguing.

Germans are also known for their baking, and in a town that celebrates Christmas, the Gingerbread Factory seems a perfect fit. If you’re looking for something a little more unique, the Nutcracker Museum certainly qualifies.

All told there’s more than a weekend’s worth of stuff to do here. Before we leave, though, let’s call attention to a couple of the more individualistic c-stores in the area. Just Plain Grocery and Gas blends in to the rustic atmosphere surrounding it, and Pat & Mike’s, known locally for its ice cream, looks to have been frozen in time before the town’s Bavarian rebirth.

To find an SSCS customer you don’t need to travel all that far as there are nine Colville Fuels sites scattered around central and northeastern Washington. Owned and operated by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, each store has their own personality, whether its Deep Water in Manson, on the shores of Lake Chelan; Tribal Trails Travel Plaza in Omak, on Hwy 97 near the Canadian border; or Half Sun Travel Plaza in Moses Lake on I-90.

SSCS solutions help a wide variety of c-store operations, from national chains to those as distinct individually as the sites of Colville Fuels. If you’re looking for a way to keep your store healthy and profitable, give us a call at (800) 972-7727 and talk to one of our sales team members. Your operation will experience a rebirth, too: a technological one.