The highway passes an abandoned sawmill and, paralleling the railroad, sweeps past prairies covered in summer with a mass of bloom. Camas flowers, ranging in color from white to a brilliant sky-blue, blend with yellow buttercups. Rainier, served by the Northern Pacific and the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific railroads, was the social center for farmers and loggers of the vicinity, although its closed mills and vacant houses mark it as a ghost lumber town.

It was named by Northern Pacific Railway officials for a commanding view of Mount Rainier that can be seen from there. The plat for the town was filed September 4, 1891.