Biohazard Cleanup Near Deer Run Buckley, WA

Buckley is a small city in Pierce County, Washington, on the south side of the White River below Mount Rainier, near Enumclaw, Bonney Lake, and Wilkeson.

Founded in 1882 as Perkin's Prairie, the settlement was called White River Siding by railroad men before being renamed in the late 1880s for J. M. Buckley, a Northern Pacific Railway district superintendent.

Alexander and Mary Wickersham platted the Buckley townsite in 1888, the town received its first post office in 1889, and Buckley was incorporated in 1889.

Buckley was sometimes called 'The City of Good Water' for the cool, clear water with which the community was supplied.

Devastating fires repeatedly leveled Buckley's business district — in 1892, 1898, and again in 1920 — and many brick buildings raised after the 1892 fire still stand on Main Street.

The 2020 census counted 5,114 residents in Buckley, living in 1,851 households.

Buckley was built by lumbering, drawing on one of the largest untouched timber belts east of the Olympic Mountains, with coal mining and shingle mills rounding out its early economy.

Railroad logging in Buckley ended in 1944 with the closure of the Buckley Logging Company mill, and the last company-operated coal mining in the area ended in 1947.

Construction of the Mud Mountain Dam on the White River above Buckley began in 1939, and the dam was completed in 1942.

The Rainier School, a state residential facility, officially opened in Buckley in 1939, and in 1946 the city limits were extended to include it.