Elisa Butler's roadside property near Mount Rainier is not easy to sell, both in terms of finding a buyer and simply the idea of letting it go.
During initial discussions, Butler said she told her real estate agent, "I don't want any for-sale signs. And, no, I don't want to advertise."
"We'll just do baby steps," she added.
One of those steps apparently was answering an interview request after The News Tribune came across the listing.
The site, 54106 Mountain Highway E., Elbe, was first put on the market in May 2022. The asking price is $4.25 million.
You might know the place as the property with all the railroad cars by the highway as you drive through Elbe on the way to Mount Rainier National Park.
Visually, it's a throwback to something you would have seen along Route 66 driving across the United States mid-20th century or earlier.
Its official name is Mt. Rainier Railroad Dining Co. and Hobo Inn. The property has a restaurant, lodging and pizza parlor all in different train cars.
"If I had a penny for every picture that people have taken in the last 40-plus years, I wouldn't have to worry about selling the place," Butler said. "People are constantly taking pictures. It goes on all day, every day, and has for years."
The site's listing agent is John L. Scott's Christine Baumann of Christine Baumann Real Estate in Puyallup. She told The News Tribune in a brief phone interview, "The wonderful thing about it obviously is it's part of the gateway to Mount Rainier."
"(Butler's) father had a vision, and he started it. And there's so many amenities right there that could support the restaurant because they just got the scenic railroad up and running again, right next door."
The roadside attraction was launched by Butler's father, Bob Thurston, in the 1980s. Thurston's work history included serving with Pierce County's road crew where he "maintained all the roads to the park," Butler said.
Mt. Rainier Railroad is a separate entity that was formerly owned by Colorado-based American Heritage Railways, which shut it down in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A new board of directors and management with Western Forest Industries Museum took ownership of the railroad in 2022, and the service resumed last fall. This year, its calendar shows various rides/excursions between Elbe and Mineral through the year.
According to Baumann, "There are thousands of people coming to ride that railroad, and then they get off and they either want something to eat before or after, or maybe they want to go in the bar and have a drink. Or maybe they just said they want to stay the night, you know, and it has all of those amenities right there."
Butler concurred that business is fine, it's staffing that's been challenging.
"Right now we do a limited service for lunch and dinner. I'm not serving breakfast currently. But that door, I'm hoping, is going to open again," she said.
"But there are so many people that are everywhere all the time ... there is plenty of business. The mountain goes crazy" during high season, she said. "And we're at the crossroads to go over to White Pass and Mount St. Helens over to Eastern Washington. There's business all the time."
The nearly-four-decade operation has one of "the largest collections of historical cabooses in the U.S. 23 total," according to its listing. Those come with the property.
The listing notes, "All have history and are unique in their own way. Six cars support dining, bar, gift shop, refrigeration & kitchen. Nine cars make up the unique lodging experience known as The Hobo Inn. Three are storage and maintenance. One car is an owner occupied pizza business."
The other four consist of cars from the "Bicentennial Freedom Train," according to the listing. President Ford inaugurated the train in December 1974, and it toured the country 1975-76 filled with historical U.S. artifacts as part of the nation's Bicentennial celebration.
At one time Butler's parents also owned and operated another iconic site, this one in Tacoma.
"I grew up in the back room of the Flying Boots on 38th Street," she said. "My parents owned that in the early '70s."
Her parents had "always been in the restaurant business. And I pretty much grew up in the back room. And my children have also grown up in back rooms of restaurants," she added.
So, how did that translate into collecting train cars?
"He had always driven by there. And then my parents had a secondary home up in Paradise Estates (in Ashford)," she recalled. "That was way before people actually lived up here. My parents would always go through Elbe, and their wheels were always turning at that time, so to speak. And my dad, he just visioned it and put it together."
That vision didn't appear overnight.
"He originally started with a popcorn stand and peanuts. So he would sell popcorn and hot peanuts on the side of the road while he was in the process of gathering all the train cars and prepping the land," she recalled.
The site grew in phases, with the restaurant first, then a lounge car, then came the cabooses and later the Bicentennial Freedom Train cars, she said.
A dinner train was featured for a while.
"A four-and-a-half hour dinner excursion," she recalled, "cooking on the train and serving the people. And we would go to Morton and back or we would go down to Eatonville and back."
The track eventually sustained too much river damage, she noted, "so there's actually not enough track to do anything with that currently."
Butler left the area for a while to live in Eastern Washington but came back to help her father in the early 2000s after he started having health issues.
Thurston retired in 2002 and died Christmas Eve 2013 at his home on the coast of Mexico. But she is routinely reminded that he and his site promotion live on.
"My dad did a big thing with 'Evening Magazine,'" the KING-5 news features program, she explained. "They came out and did a big story on the restaurant and the motel and stuff years ago. And every now and then people will call," she said, referencing it.
"He's been gone for 10 years. And I still get phone calls," she laughed.
Baumann, asked to reflect on the length of time the site had been on the market, said it was not unusual.
"Typically, commercial property doesn't move that fast," Baumann noted.
"I have not really pushed," Butler said. "It's just there."
Letting go, Butler admitted, in some ways would be hard after all the decades of dedication.
"I'll probably be that shadow in the background, going, 'Do you need help?'" she laughed. "But this is chance in a lifetime for someone to own a huge part of history with the rail cars and the legacy of our family goes on. I'm ready to hang my conductor's hat up to move on into my next chapter in life."
She added, "It wouldn't be bad to be able to enjoy my grandkids. I have been so busy. And basically, I was a single mom with my three children. ... If I can pay back moments that I've missed in time and have it with my grandchildren, that would be full circle, then, in my mind."
