Rainier is a city in Thurston County, Washington, United States. Beginning as a train stop in the 1870s, Rainier was first arranged in 1890, and was officially incorporated in 1947. The population was 1,794 at the 2010 census.

Rainier began in the 1870s as a stop on the Northern Pacific Railroad line amongst Kalama, Washington and Tacoma. Situated amidst the ‘ten al quelth’ prairies – Lushootseed for “the best yet” – it was named for its view of Mount Rainier. In 1890, Albert and Maria Gehrke were the first enduring settlers to homestead in Rainier; later that year a accrual and state office were received by Henry Harmer, who homesteaded later his wife Jessie and children on the Deschutes river close Rainier. Rainier was officially platted in 1891.

In 1896, the community’s first full-time educational as capably as a Lutheran church were built by Albert Gehrke and his two brothers, Theodore and Paul; the buildings are now come clean historic landmarks.

In 1906, the Bob White Lumber Company opened, bringing material comfort to the Place through logging and sawmilling. Other lumber companies, such as Deschutes, Gruber and Docherty, and Fir Tree, were soon attracted to the area as well. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, several of these mill operations and many of the local buildings were destroyed by a series of fires, leading many residents to seek take steps at Weyerhaeuser Lumber at easy to use Vail, which is now a ghost town.

Rainier’s 1940 population was 500. In 1941, the WPA Guide to Washington described Rainier as “the social middle for farmers and loggers of the vicinity, although its closed mills and empty houses mark it as a ghost lumber town.”