Leavenworth's Nutcracker Museum
Near Leavenworth, Washington
Leavenworth, Washington remade itself as a Bavarian village in the nineteen sixties to survive after the railroad rerouted and the sawmill closed. The theme stuck, and today the town draws millions of visitors. But tucked inside the Bavarian streetscape is one of the more singular museums in the Pacific Northwest: a five-thousand-square-foot building devoted entirely to nutcrackers.
Arlene Wagner, known as the Nutcracker Lady, and her husband George opened the museum in nineteen ninety-five to share her collection. It now holds more than nine thousand devices, ranging from an ancient Roman bronze piece to carved figures from the sixteenth century to novelty crackers from around the world. It is one of the largest collections of nut-cracking implements on earth, housed in the most improbable of places.
