 Ravensdale was originally called "Leary", after the Leary Coal Company, in turn, named for John Leary, a Seattle pioneer.The latter name came from the flocks of ravens that fed on grain spilled from the boxcars on the Northern Pacific Railroad tracks that ran through the town.Underground coal mining commenced around 1899 by the Seattle and San Francisco Railway and Navigation Company, although coal had been mined in nearby Danville and Landsburg a few years earlier.