Town near Mount Rainier is now on a ‘dead end road.’ Businesses are struggling
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Fairfax Bridge Closure
The 103-year-old bridge is closed to pedestrian and vehicle traffic after structural issues were found, cutting off a popular access to Mount Rainier National Park.
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Ian Galbraith starts every day at the Carlson Block with over 100 pre-made dough balls.
Galbraith, who owns the pizzeria with his wife, Ashley, makes the dough the night before.
“If I make 135 dough balls, that’s what we have to sell the next day,” Galbraith said.
In an interview with The News Tribune on Wednesday, he talked about the pizzeria, what goes on behind the scenes — and what the permanent closure of the state Route 165 Carbon River Fairfax Bridge means for local businesses.
The Carlson Block is in Wilkeson, a town with a population of around 500 nestled near Mount Rainier National Park. Galbraith said that, during the summer months, he sees an influx of tourists who stop by on the way to the park.
“In the summer months, with the national park open, we have days where we sell out in 90 minutes. We open at 3 p.m. and there have been days where by 4, 4:30, the line’s so long, we’re sold out,” Galbraith said. “I think days like that might be gone.”
The bridge permanently closed on April 22 when Washington State Department of Transportation officials declared it a safety risk. The single-lane, 103-year-old bridge led to the Carbon River Ranger Station and key areas of Mount Rainier National Park, such as Mowich Lake, Spray Park, the Carbon Glacier Trail and Tolmie Peak.
Now, local businesses in Wilkeson are figuring out how to stay afloat without that rush of tourist traffic.
‘Missing out on the opportunity to see new faces’
Galbraith said The Carlson Block benefits from the tourist traffic every summer.
“We have a great, local clientele — we get a lot of people coming out specifically for us,” Galbraith said. “[But] we get a big chunk of our business, especially in the summer months, from people who might not necessarily know that we’re here, and they’re coming to Mount Rainier National Park and they see this pizzeria by the park.”
Galbraith said that during the summer months, the dough balls sell out by 4 p.m. or 4:30 p.m. Now, he expects they will sell out at 6 or 7 p.m.
“I think from a business standpoint, we’ll be in the ballpark of where we’ve always been — it’s just unfortunate because, like, we’re going to be missing out on the opportunity to see new faces come into the restaurant,” Galbraith said. “[People] who didn’t know we were here, it will be a pleasant surprise to them … to see this cool little restaurant in this cool little town and have a good story to tell, and a good meal to remember.”
Other businesses are struggling to find their footing amid the bridge closure. For the Simple Goodness Soda Shop, it almost meant keeping their doors shut for the summer season.
“With much apprehension and a little panic we have decided to open as we had planned this Thursday April 24th for the Summer 2025 Season. We put so much heart and money into this season it didn’t feel right to not give it a go,” Venise Cunningham and Belinda Kelly, the sisters who run the business, wrote on their Instagram page on April 23 . “But we’ll be honest, without the tourist traffic, it may not make sense to keep it going while the bridge is closed long term. We want to be optimistic but we also have to be realistic. There’s a lot riding on the next four months.”
Later in their April 23 Instagram post, the sisters at Simple Goodness said they are planning to host new events that they hope will cultivate a community independent of access to the park.
“We have some ideas on how we can help generate traffic to our town,” the post said. “Already, we host special events like Old Fashioned Fest in May, Garlic and Goats in August and the community hosts the Handcar Races in July. We are also launching a new live music series this summer on Saturday nights that we hope will draw more people who live in the neighboring towns to our small town just five miles up the (now dead end) road.”
In an interview with The News Tribune, Kelly said her reaction to finding out about the bridge closure was “extreme disappointment.”
“One of the things that appealed to us about the town of Wilkeson was that it had this sleepier existence in a small town, but that summer traffic brought in a lot of new visitors and a lot of customers,” Kelly said. “There was definitely a piece we factored into our plans.”
Kelly said that because the bridge closed so soon before they were set to open for the season, they had to stay optimistic and see what happened. They also didn’t want to disappoint their customers who see Simple Goodness as “a home away from home.”
“The bridge has been 30 years past its life expectancy, but we had no real way of knowing before this year that there was an ongoing issue that would affect us in this way,” Kelly said.
Business owners on the other side of the bridge are struggling too. Lo Tahoma, which used to offer private campsites in the Carbon Canyon, has shut down its Hipcamp site.
“This would have been our 6th year providing a private campsite on our property in the Carbon Canyon,” the business wrote in a Facebook post. “We weren’t expecting this news one month before opening, but here we are.”
In the post, Lo Tahoma said the worst part of closing was the loss of personal connections.
“[We] put everything we had into making this a special place to camp. We enjoyed meeting people from all over the world who stayed at our modest campsite in the cedar grove,” the post said. “When Mowich was open, we were booked nearly every single day. It was fun while it lasted.”
What now?
Business owners in Wilkeson are working on creative ways to bring people to the area.
Later in their April 23 Instagram post, the sisters at Simple Goodness said they are planning to host new events that they hope will cultivate a community independent of access to the park.
“We are doing everything we can as a group to get information out that Wilkeson is still open and trying to come up with new lists and activities and maps and things that give people reasons to visit,” Kelly told The News Tribune “[It’s] this very cool town that looks like a movie set that only has 500 people in it, and it has a rich history.”
The Wilkeson Historical District — a building that is under construction and is set to be used as a historical building, event center and AirBnB — announced the launch of Wilkeson’s Way Forward in an Instagram post on Tuesday. Wilkeson’s Way Forward is an effort to raise $1 million to buy 137 acres of land near the bridge.
“We have the rare chance to secure a vital piece of land … just off Wilkeson’s historic downtown, that we can transform into trails, parks, and gathering spaces that will serve our town for generations,” the campaign said on its fundraising page. “A place where families can grow, visitors can experience our small-town spirit, and residents can build new traditions rooted in Wilkeson’s proud past.”
The Wilkeson Historical District didn’t immediately respond to The News Tribune’s request for an interview on Wednesday.
“While we continue to advocate for the bridge’s reopening, we must also move boldly toward a future we can shape ourselves,” the campaign page says. “This campaign is not just a response to adversity, it is an opportunity to invest in the strength and spirit of our community.”
As for the bridge, WSDOT previously told The News Tribune it is considering three options for the future. They include:
- Keeping the bridge closed and not replacing it.
- Building a replacement bridge in the same area.
- Re-routing state Route 165 to the east or west of Carbon River Canyon.
WSDOT is in the process of scheduling an in-person open house for the public, which is tentatively scheduled for early June. They are aiming to have an online open house go live shortly after Memorial Day. On WSDOT’s website, there is a page about the planning study that will help the agency examine its options.
Residents can get updates on the study at wsdot.wa.gov.
In the meantime, business owners are looking for ways to draw visitors to their town.
“[We’re] getting everyone together and getting on the same page — we all realize this is going to affect the town,” Galbraith said. “We’re all united in fighting for Wilkeson, for it to remain viable, for it to be a good place to come out.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comments from Belinda Kelly, co-owner of the Simple Goodness Soda Shop in Wilkeson.
This story was originally published May 1, 2025 at 10:55 AM.
