Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Ravensdale, WA

Ravensdale is a census-designated place (CDP) in southern King County, Washington, bordered to the west by the city of Maple Valley and located about 28 miles southeast of downtown Seattle.

The community was originally called "Leary" after the Leary Coal Company and Seattle pioneer John Leary; its present name came from the flocks of ravens that fed on grain spilled from boxcars along the Northern Pacific Railroad tracks.

Underground coal mining began around 1899, and by 1907 Ravensdale was a coal town of about 1,000 residents, most of whom worked for the mining company.

Ravensdale was officially incorporated on August 15, 1913, but its boom ended on November 16, 1915, when a mine explosion killed 31 men — one of the worst coal mining accidents in Washington state history — and the main mine closed permanently.

The town disincorporated in the 1920s, though smaller mines kept working the Danville, Landsburg, and McKay coal seams for decades afterward.

On December 17, 1975, the Rogers No. 3 mine was dynamited shut by the Palmer Coking Coal Company, closing the last underground coal mine in the state of Washington.

After the coal era, Ravensdale's census population swung sharply: 816 people in 301 households in 2000, 1,101 in 2010, then just 555 at the 2020 census.

The CDP spans about 4.6 square miles at an elevation of roughly 620 feet, where Landsburg Road and Kent Kangley Road cross near its center, and it keeps its own U.S. Post Office.

Singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile is a notable resident of Ravensdale.

The community experiences a warm-summer Mediterranean climate under the Köppen classification, typical of the Cascade foothills.