Leavenworth is a city in Chelan County, Washington, United States. It is allowance of the Wenatchee−East Wenatchee Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,263 at the 2020 census. The entire town center is modeled upon a German Bavarian village as allocation of a civic initiative that began in the 1960s. The area is a major, four-season tourist destination bearing in mind festivals nearly all month and a multitude of happenings year round.

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

Leavenworth was officially incorporated upon September 5, 1906. A little timber community, it became a regional office of the Great Northern Railway in the yet to be 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 to come as 1929, when they opened a ski jump. In 1962, the Project LIFE (Leavenworth Improvement For Everyone) Committee was formed in partnership taking into consideration the University of Washington to examine 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 seat of the Project LIFE tourism subcommittee, and in 1965 the pair led a vacation to a Danish-themed town, Solvang, California, to construct support for the idea. The first building to be remodeled in the Bavarian style was the Chikamin Hotel, which owner LaVerne Peterson renamed the Edelweiss after the give leave to enter flower of Bavaria.