The Ryan House was once the central gem of the City of Sumner and a key component of the City’s Comprehensive Plan.

Located on Sumner’s main street, the one-room pioneer cabin—which dated to the late 19th century and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places—was a prominent historic landmark in Sumner, one that held meaning to generations of Sumner residents. The City planned to rehabilitate the building as a public facility and even raised $1.5 million towards this goal. But when cost estimates for rehabilitation increased, the City Council quickly pivoted from rehabilitation and celebration to an unexpected vote to demolish. Their turnaround prompted the formation of local advocacy group Save Ryan House, which rallied community support and nominated the site to our Most Endangered Places list in 2023.

Despite their tireless advocacy, the community of people who cared about and fought for the preservation of the Ryan House were caught off guard at multiple critical junctions by the City’s actions. The City of Sumner turned its back on its commitment to community partners to rehabilitate this important historic site for sustained public use and instead pursued demolition. After nearly two years of strong public support, legal actions, appeals, and the sweat and tears of community activists, the Ryan House met an abrupt, permanent, and regrettable end.

On July 24, 2025, the City of Sumner issued another demolition permit for the Ryan House. Within hours, they removed some features of the building for potential salvage. The building itself was razed sometime between the late hours of July 24 and very early morning hours of the 25th, with demolition substantially completed before City offices opened the morning of July 25.

If middle-of-the-night demolition sounds odd or concerning to you, it should.

The loss of the Ryan House is a significant blow in a city grappling with a great deal of development and change. This loss is an unmooring from one of the major community anchors—one that symbolized and told Sumner’s history and served as witness to collective memory. A public-serving institution for almost a century, the Ryan House was where generations of Sumner residents went to learn and celebrate their local identity.

It is then even more tragic that the community has felt unheard and excluded from decision-making for the past several years while Sumner’s City staff and elected officials have gone through the motions for determining next steps. While we have not finished mourning the loss of the Ryan House, we continue to ask the City of Sumner to work with its residents and the Washington Trust to develop mitigation and interpretation measures—not as an empty gesture, but to reconcile through a democratic process the public’s need for remembrance and learning.

The historic Ryan House prior to demolition. Photo courtesy of the City of Sumner.
The Ryan House demolished in July 2025. Photo courtesy of Feliks Banel.

Photo at top of page: A memorial wreath laid upon the fence in front of the demolished Ryan House. Photo courtesy of Feliks Banel.