Water in a High Place
The beauty and abundant resources of the Lake Tahoe basin have attracted people to its shores for hundreds of years. The Washo, Native Americans of this region, relied on springtime fishing here before moving to higher mountain meadows during the summer.
Pioneers and miners quickly reaped the benefits of its forests and moved on. Today, the forest has reclaimed much of the evidence of this frantic mining and logging activities, leaving a world-renowned beauty and serenity that is enjoyed by millions of visitors each year.
What's in a Name?
The first white men known to have seen Lake Tahoe attached the name Lake Bonpland after a French botanist. However, the name never stuck. Over the years the lake has held many other names, including Mountain Lake, Lake Bigler in honor of the third governor of California, Tula Tulia, various spellings of Tahoe, Maheon Lake and Sierra Lake. Regardless of what the maps read, most people called it Lake Tahoe, based on a Washo word meaning "big water," "deep water", or perhaps more correctly, "water in a high place." In 1945, the California Legislature reinforced the opinion of one early settler regarding Indian place-names in the region, "Their names are on the waters and the land, and we may not wash then off."
Gold, Logs, Water and Railroads
It's hard to envision the industrious nature of life in the Lake Tahoe area nearly 150 years ago. By the mid-1850s, the gold rush in California was winding down, but miners and loggers moved their operations east into the Tahoe basin and the Comstock Lode near Virginia City, Nevada. Elaborate network of roads, railroads, pipelines and flumes supplied the lumber and water from the high country to the Nevada mining towns. At the peak, as much as 70 million board feet of timber was harvested in a single years, and millions of gallons of water were delivered to Virginia City daily through the flumes.
From Timber to Tourists
Scenic logging railroads, flumes and sawmills created a growing tourists attraction in the late 1800s. Land use turned to commercial resorts, agriculture and large private estates. By the early 1900s, the Tahoe Forest Reserve was established by the federal government. Other national forest designations followed.
The exclusiveness of the old luxury hotels and steamboats declined with the advent of automobiles, making Lake Tahoe accessible to nearly anyone. Following World War II, the tourist trade surged. The Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley brought national and global attention to the region in 1960. The growth has never slowed.