Ashford, Gateway to the Mountain

The little community you are passing through is Ashford, the last real town before the national park, and for more than a century its story has been tied to the mountain looming to the east. This land was first the home of the Upper Nisqually people. The town takes its name from Walter Ashford, who homesteaded here in eighteen eighty-eight and filed to plat a townsite, formally laying out the town in nineteen oh four.

In eighteen ninety four his wife Cora opened the first post office and served as postmistress, a role she reportedly held all the way until nineteen thirty eight. Ashford's early fortunes rose with the railroad. It became the end of the line for the Tacoma Eastern Railway, which hauled out timber and ore and, just as importantly, hauled in tourists bound for the newly created Mount Rainier National Park.

Walter would load visitors into wagons and drive them the rough miles up toward Longmire to see the sights. As the logging industry faded, the town leaned fully into its role as the mountain's western doorstep. Today Ashford lives on the trade of recreation seekers, its lodges, cabins, and guide services outfitting the climbers, hikers, and wanderers who all funnel through here on their way to Tahoma.