Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Leavenworth, WA

Leavenworth is a city in Chelan County, Washington, set in the Cascade Mountains at an elevation of 1,168 feet where Icicle Creek meets the Wenatchee River, along U.S. Route 2.

The Leavenworth area was home to Wenatchi and Yakama villages, and the 1855 Treaty of Walla Walla promised the Wenatchi a 36-square-mile reservation around their fishery at the confluence — a reservation the federal government never surveyed.

The first non-native settlers staked claims near Icicle Creek in 1885, and after the Great Northern Railway built a division point across the river, the new town was laid out in 1893 and named for Portland land investor Charles Leavenworth, a relative of Colonel Henry Leavenworth of Fort Leavenworth fame.

Leavenworth incorporated as a city on September 5, 1906, and Lafayette Lamb's mill, built after his 1903 arrival, was the second-largest sawmill in Washington.

When the Great Northern Railway moved its regional offices to Wenatchee in 1925 and the lumber mills closed, Leavenworth's economy collapsed and its population declined into the 1950s.

In 1962 townspeople formed the Project LIFE committee, and businessmen Ted Price and Bob Rodgers promoted remaking the town in a Bavarian alpine style; the first Bavarian-style building, the Edelweiss Hotel, opened on July 1, 1965.

Today Leavenworth's entire town center is modeled on a Bavarian village, and a design review board enforces the alpine theme on every new business — including chain restaurants and retailers.

Tourism is Leavenworth's largest industry: the city and its Bavarian village drew about 3.4 million visitors in 2024, against a resident population of just 2,263.

Leavenworth had a population of 2,263 at the 2020 census, living in 958 households.

The city's calendar includes a famous Christmas tree lighting celebration in December, an Oktoberfest dating to 1998, a Maifest, and the Autumn Leaf Festival.