Palmer is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in
King County,
Washington, United States. It is located along the
Green River next to the
Kanaskat-Palmer State Park.
Palmer was originally a telegraph station on the
Northern Pacific Railway
The Northern Pacific Railway was an important American transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the Western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest between 1864 and 1970. It was approved and chartered b ...
opened during the construction of the railway's line across
Stampede Pass c. 1886. The point was originally named "Green River." In 1888, the NP changed the name to "Palmer" for George L. Palmer, then a timber cruiser for the company and later an official in the company's Land Department. The original route across Stampede Pass traveled from
Tacoma to
Puyallup, where the line turned east and continued to
Orting,
Buckley,
Enumclaw, and Palmer. The railway continued east along the Green River to
Lester and Stampede Pass.
Between 1899 and 1900 the Northern Pacific built a shortcut from Palmer Junction (just east of Palmer), crossing the Green River to
Kanaskat, and thence westward to
Ravensdale,
Covington and finally
Auburn. This route is known as the Palmer Cutoff and is still used by today's
BNSF Railway
BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three Transcontinental railroad, transcontine ...
.
Climate
Palmer has an
Oceanic climate
An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate or maritime climate, is the temperate climate sub-type in Köppen climate classification, Köppen classification represented as ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of co ...
(Cfb) according to the
Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...
system.
References
Unincorporated communities in King County, Washington
Unincorporated communities in Washington (state)
{{KingCountyWA-geo-stub