Saturday, April 30, 2011

Wauconda, Washington

Tucked up in the mountains of north central Washington state is a tiny little one horse town where I spent part of my childhood. Wauconda can be found by driving up Highway 20 north from the little town of Tonasket, but be careful, because about halfway between Tonasket and Republic there is a place that you can miss if you blink. That is Wauconda. A tiny little building on the side of the road that the last time I saw it was still no more than a few gas pumps out in front of a general store and cafe. Tucked in at the back of the store is the town's post office.

Wauconda has more to it, but you need to travel a little ways up a side road to get to the town hall. I'm not really sure just where the school is, since I never went to it, but I hear they have one somewhere.

Wauconda is a curious little town in that the current town is not where it started, it is in fact (if memory serves me) the third location of the town. My mom had looked into the town's history back when we lived there and what she had told me was that it started out up at the old mining site (it began as a mine town), but was later moved. Only to be moved once again, only to be moved for a second time in later years to the location it still sits today.

When I was a kid I would ride my pony over the mountain to the store to buy candy. My parents talked several times over the years about buying it when it would go up for sale off and on over the years, but they never did.

Wauconda is listed as being a ghost town at the Ghost Towns website.

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