Bucoda, WA

Bucoda follows the Skookumchuck River in Thurston County, a place where a sawmill, a territorial prison, and a modern Halloween tradition all occupy the same few blocks of memory. Aaron Webster arrived in the 1850s and started a mill on the river in 1857. Oliver Shead later named the settlement Seatco, and from 1874 to 1888 the town held Washington Territory’s first prison. The Seatco Prison Site is now listed on the National Register, giving the town a tangible reminder of the harsher work that once shaped the valley.

Every October Bucoda becomes Boo-coda, a month-long run of haunted attractions, hearse processions, and Scary Nights at the former school gymnasium. The playful season works because the town has a real historical backdrop, but the rest of the year is more ordinary: Volunteer Park, town hall, the volunteer fire department, and neighborhood streets along the river. Volunteer Park dates to 1959, and South Sound Speedway sits northwest of downtown for figure-eight racing. Bucoda turns its past into a community calendar without losing the small-town places where residents gather year-round.