Spencer Jack Taking His Snowy Thanksgiving Turkey To Leavenworth

This morning I learned, via Facebook, that my great nephew, Spencer Jack, has taken his dad, my favorite nephew Jason, on a pre-Thanksgiving visit to Washington's #1 themed tourist town, Leavenworth.

I did not realize til seeing the photo documentation that so much snow has landed on the ground in Washington, well before winter's arrival next month.

I have visited Leavenworth in the dead of winter, in the Christmas time frame, to find the ground covered with a lot of snow. I recollect cross country skiing on Leavenworth's cross country ski trails.

Til this morning it had never crossed my mind to wonder why Leavenworth is named Leavenworth. Why would a Bavarian themed town share the same name with an infamous prison in Kansas?

According to the Wikipedia Leavenworth Prison article that particular Leavenworth is named after Colonel Henry Leavenworth, who chose the site of the future prison to be a fort, which I guess he named after himself.

In the Wikipedia Leavenworth Washington article I learned  that the Washington Leavenworth is not named after the same guy who has a prison that uses his name....

The first route across Stevens Pass was built by the Great Northern Railway in 1892. The town site was across the Wenatchee River from Icicle and was named Leavenworth the same year the rail construction began. Captain Charles Leavenworth, president of the Okanogan Investment Company, purchased the land in the present-day downtown and laid the streets parallel to the new railroad tracks.

I have absolutely no memory of train tracks in Leavenworth, let alone a train station, which the Wikipedia article says is called Icicle Station.

I really think it would behoove Leavenworth to change the town's name to something more Bavarian, a name more suited to its Alpine look.

However, having said that, I am drawing a total blank as to what a Bavarian type name for Leavenworth might be....