LAKE TAHOE AND THE TRUCKEE RIVER
As is well known, the Truckee River is the only outlet to Lake Tahoe.
This outlet is on the northwest side of the Lake, between Tahoe City
and Tahoe Tavern, and is now entirely controlled by the concrete dam
and head-gates referred to in the chapter on "Public uses of the Water
of Lake Tahoe."
When Frémont came down from Oregon in 1844, he named the river
_Salmon Trout River_, from the excellent fish found therein, but
the same year, according to Angel, in his _History of Nevada_, a
party of twenty-three men, enthused by the glowing accounts they had
heard of California, left Council Bluffs, May 20th, crossed the plains
in safety, and reached the Humboldt River. Here an Indian, named
Truckee, presented himself to them and offered to become their
guide. After questioning him closely, they engaged him, and as they
progressed, found that all his statements were verified. He soon
became a great favorite among them, and when they reached the lower
crossing of the river (now Wadsworth), they were so pleased by the
pure water and the abundance of the fish to which he directed them,
that they named the stream "Truckee" in his honor.
This Capt. Truckee was the chief of the Paiutis, and the father of
Winnemucca (sometimes known as Poito), and the grandfather of Sarah
Winnemucca Hopkins, long known in Boston and other eastern cities,
where she lectured under the patronage of Mrs. Horace Mann, Mrs. Ole
Bull, Miss Longfellow, and other prominent women, as the Princess
Sallie. When I first went to Nevada, over thirty-three years ago,
I soon got to know her and her father, Winnemucca, and met them
constantly.
Sarah always claimed that Truckee and Frémont were great friends and
that it was the Pathfinder who named the river after her grandfather,
but nowhere in his _Report_ of the 1843-44 Expedition does he
mention Truckee, and he called the river the "Salmon Trout River";
and this name he retained both in the report and map published in his
_Memoirs of My Life_, Vol. I only of which was issued by Belford,
Clarke and Company, of Chicago, in 1887.
Hence Sallie is undoubtedly mistaken in this regard. But on several
points she is correct, and too great emphasis cannot be laid upon
these facts. They are, I, that Truckee guided several emigrant
parties, even as far as Sutter's Fort, California (where Sacramento,
the Capital of the State, now stands); II, that he was always
friendly, true and honest in his dealings with the whites; III, that
had the emigrants and settlers in Nevada treated him as honestly as he
did them there would never have been any conflicts between the Paiutis
and the whites; IV, that when the latter first came to the country he
called councils of his people and bade them welcome the newcomers with
open arms.
He died just as the wrongs inflicted upon the Paiutis were making them
desperate and resolved on war. Though his son, Winnemucca, is well
known never openly to have waged war against the whites, it was
thoroughly understood that secretly he favored it. But had his father
lived and retained his health and power there is little doubt but that
the open conflict would have been averted, and many precious human
lives on both sides saved.
The Truckee River has its rise in Lake Tahoe, flows northward and
breaks through the Mount Pluto ridge in a narrow canyon, one thousand
to two thousand feet in depth. While the canyon is narrow and its
slopes, especially on the east, are rocky and steep, it is not exactly
gorge-like, except for the space of a mile or so, a short distance
below Tahoe. For twelve miles the river follows a northerly course,
and it is then joined by Donner Creek flowing from Donner Lake.
The united streams then turn eastward and take a course across the
northern end of the gravelly flat of Martis Valley, in a channel two
hundred to two-hundred-fifty feet below the level of the plain. At
Boca it cuts through the eastern range with a canyon one thousand to
three thousand five hundred feet in depth and emerges on the plains
of Nevada between Verdi and Reno. It returns again to the north below
Wadsworth, having run sixty-nine miles from Donner Creek, and then,
flowing sixteen more miles, it discharges into Pyramid Lake. At Tahoe
the river begins at an elevation of 6,225 feet above sea level; at
Pyramid the level is 4,890 feet, thus giving the river a fall of 1,335
feet in ninety-seven miles.
The Truckee River receives a number of large tributaries; the
principal ones being Little Truckee River and Prosser Creek, the
former heading in Webber Lake, the latter in the main range of the
Sierras, most of its sources lying in small lakes held in hollows and
basins excavated by glaciers.
Until it was contaminated by the refuse of civilization its waters
were pure and healthful, but legal enactments have been necessary to
protect the stream from sawdust and other pollutions.
As elsewhere explained the Truckee River being the only outlet of Lake
Tahoe, and therefore its natural outflow channel, together with the
facts that its origin is in California and it then flows into Nevada,
and that part of Lake Tahoe is in each state, has helped complicate
the solution of the question as to who is entitled to the surplus
waters of the Lake. This is discussed somewhat in a later chapter
devoted to the subject.
It may be interesting to recall that in 1900 Mr. A.W. Von Schmidt,
President of the _Lake Tahoe and San Francisco Water Works_,
offered to sell to the City of San Francisco certain rights to the
water of Lake Tahoe, the dam at the outlet, contract for a deed to two
and a half acres of land on which the outlet dam was constructed, a
diverting dam in the Truckee River, a patent to the land (forty acres)
on which this land stood, and the maps and surveys for a complete line
conveying the water of Lake Tahoe to the city of the Golden Gate. He
offered to construct this line, including a tunnel through the Sierra
Nevadas, and deliver thirty million gallons of water daily, for
$17,960,000. If a double line, or a hundred millions of gallons daily,
were required, the price was to be correspondingly increased.
This proposition aroused the people of Nevada, and R.L. Fulton, of
Reno, Manager of the State Board of Trade, wrote to the San Francisco
supervisors, calling attention to the facts that there was no surplus
water from Tahoe during the irrigation season, for the water had
been diverted by the farmers living along the Truckee River to their
fields; that flouring-mills, smelting and reduction works, electric
light plant and water-works at Reno, immense saw-mills, a furniture
factory, box factory, water and electric-light works, railroad
water-tanks, etc., at Truckee, half a dozen ice-ponds, producing over
200,000 tons of ice annually, sawmills and marble-working mills at
Essex; planing-mills at Verdi, paper-mill at Floristan, and other
similar plants, were totally dependent for their water supply upon the
Truckee River.
He also claimed (what was the well-known fact) that the Von Schmidt
dam was burned out many years ago, and that Nevada would put up a
tremendously stiff fight to prevent any such diversion of Tahoe water
as was contemplated. Needless to say the plan fell through.