DARRINGTON, Wash. — Once upon a time, timber made Darrington. Now, it could remake Darrington.
That's the story Mayor Dan Rankin tells as he walks through the woods outside his mountain-rimmed community, which for decades has struggled with the decline of its old-school logging industry and which was traumatized on March 22, 2014, by the deadliest landslide in U.S. history.
Rankin is the driving force behind a $120 million plan to develop a manufacturing hub for cross-laminated timber panels and modular housing. Work should break ground soon in the small Snohomish County town, which was Ground Zero for the landslide's emergency response.
