Sunrise Lodge, Longmire, Pierce County, WA

Significance: Sunrise Lodge was part of a carefully planned effort to bring tourism to the northeastern side of Mount Rainier. The Yakima Park project was the National Park Service Landscape Division's first opportunity to design a tourist village from scratch, as well as its first partnership with a private concessioner in the development of such a plan. During the late twenties, the Bureau of Public Roads began work on the new spur highway that would provide access to the alpine meadows of Yakima Park. While the Park Service considered methods of reducing human impact on the site, the concessioner struggled to finance as large and luxurious a hotel facility as possible. Only because funds were not available, the RNPC's hotel complex a lodge, housekeeping service building and 700 cabins was scaled down to a single building accompanied by about 200 cabins. A local architectural firm designed the lodge in a style reminiscent of the stick and shingle styles popular during the late 19th-century. Although the Depression and World War II prevented the completion of the building as designed, the core of the lodge was erected as a cafeteria and gift shop with second-floor employee accommodations. The Yakima Park Village illustrates the conflict between the needs of a private resort company and the new demands of Park Service architects trained to consider environmental issues. In its incomplete state, Sunrise Lodge is a monument to an historic collaboration.
Survey number: HABS WA-237
Building/structure dates: 1931 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: before 1940 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1975 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1979 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1981 Subsequent Work
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 97000344