Leavenworth is a city in Chelan County, Washington, United States. It is share of the Wenatchee−East Wenatchee Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,965 at the 2010 census. The entire town middle is modeled on a Bavarian village as allowance of a civic initiative that began in the 1960s. The Place is a major, four-season tourist destination later than festivals nearly every month and a multitude of goings-on year round.

The construction of the Great Northern Railway through Tumwater Canyon in 1892 brought settlers to a townsite that was named “Leavenworth”. Lafayette Lamb arrived in 1903 from Clinton, Iowa, to construct the second largest sawmill in Washington state.

Leavenworth was officially incorporated on September 5, 1906. A small timber community, it became a regional office of the Great Northern Railway in the forward 1900s. The railroad relocated to Wenatchee in 1925, greatly affecting Leavenworth’s economy. The city’s population declined skillfully into the 1950s as the lumber mills closed and stores relocated.

The city looked to tourism and recreation as a major economy as forward as 1929, when they opened a ski jump. In 1962, the Project LIFE (Leavenworth Improvement For Everyone) Committee was formed in partnership once the University of Washington to question strategies to revitalize the struggling logging town. The theme town idea was created by two Seattle businessmen, Ted Price and Bob Rodgers, who had bought a failing cafe on Highway 2 in 1960. Price was chair of the Project LIFE tourism subcommittee, and in 1965 the pair led a vacation to a Danish-themed town, Solvang, California, to build support for the idea. The first building to be remodeled in the Bavarian style was the Chikamin Hotel, which owner Jamie Peterson renamed the Edelweiss after the give access flower of Bavaria.

Leavenworth is house to the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, which opened in 1995 and contains beyond 5,000 nutcrackers dating from outdated to modern. Leavenworth hosts an annual Oktoberfest celebration. Leavenworth’s transformation into a theme town was inspired, and assisted, by Solvang, California. Later, the Washington town of Winthrop followed Leavenworth’s example and adopted a Western town theme.