HISTORIC TAHOE TOWNS
There have been only three towns on the immediate banks of Lake Tahoe,
viz., Tahoe City, Glenbrook and Incline, though Knoxville was located
on the Truckee River only six miles away.
_Tahoe City_. Tahoe City was founded in 1864 at the collapse
of the Squaw Valley mining excitement, the story of which is fully
related in another chapter. Practically all its first inhabitants
were from the deserted town of Knoxville. They saw that the lumbering
industry was active and its permanence fully assured so long as
Virginia City, Gold Hill and other Nevada mining-camps remained
profitable. The forests around the Lake seemed inexhaustible, and
there was no need for them to go back to an uncertainty in the placer
mines of El Dorado County, when they were pretty sure to be able
to make a good living here. They, also, probably exercised a little
imagination and saw the possibilities of Lake Tahoe as a health and
pleasure resort. Its great beauty must have impressed them somewhat,
and the exploitation of these features may have occurred to them.
Anyhow, in 1864, the Bailey Hotel was erected, and, later, a man
named Hill erected the Grand Central. The Squaw Valley excitement had
attracted a number from the Nevada camps, and when these men returned
they took with them glowing accounts of the beauty of Lake Tahoe, and
of the fishing and hunting to be enjoyed there. Thus the Lake received
some of its earliest resort patronage. During lumbering days it was an
active, bustling place, being the nearest town to which the loggers,
drivers, tree-fellers, millmen and others could flee for their weekly
recreation and periodic carouses. Yet it must not be thought that the
town was wholly given over to roughness. Helen Hunt Jackson, a widely
traveled and observant woman of finest susceptibilities, says of the
Lake Tahoe House, which she visited in stage-coach days, that it was
"one of the very best in all California." It was the stopping-place of
the _élite_ who came to see and enjoy Tahoe, and until later
and more fashionable hotels were built around the Lake enjoyed great
popularity.
As soon as the logging industry declined Tahoe City began to go down,
and only the fishing and tourist interests kept it alive.
When the railway was moved over from Glenbrook and the shops and yard
of the Transportation Company were established here it regained some
of its former activity and life, and is now the chief business center
on the Lake. It is the headquarters of the campers who come for
pleasure each year, and its store does a very large and thriving
business. New cottages are being erected and it is destined ere long
to be a stirring pleasure resort town, for, as the delights of Tahoe
become more widely known, every available piece of land will increase
in value and where there is now one summer home there will be a
hundred.
_Glenbrook_. On the Nevada side of the Lake, Glenbrook used to be
one of the most active, busy, bustling towns in the west. It scarcely
seems credible to one who visits the quiet, placid resort of to-day
that when I first saw it, some thirty years ago, it had three or
four large sawmills in constant operation, day and night. It was then
regarded, and so designated in the _History of Nevada_, published
in 1881, as "the great lumber manufacturing town of the state."
The town was begun in 1860, the land being squatted upon by G.W.
Warren, N.E. Murdock, and R. Walton. In 1861 Captain A.W. Pray erected
a saw-mill, run by water-power, but as water sometimes failed, when
the demand for lumber increased, he changed to steam-power. He also
secured a thousand acres, much of it the finest timber land, from the
government, using in its purchase Sioux Scrip.
Up to 1862 the only way to travel from California to Carson and
Virginia City, south of Lake Tahoe, was by the Placerville road which
came by Bijou and Lakeside and then over the Kingsbury Grade, via
Friday's Station, afterward called Small's, by which latter name it
is still known on the maps of the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1862,
however, a new road was projected, branching off to the northwest
(the left) from Small's, and following the eastern shore of the Lake,
passed Zephyr Cove and Cave Rock to Glenbrook, thence by Spooner's
and down King's Canyon to Carson. This was called the Lake Bigler Toll
Road (notice the fact that "Tahoe" was then officially designated in
Nevada as "Bigler"), and was completed in 1863.
This demanded the opening of a better class of hotel for travelers
and others in Glenbrook, and in the same year the road was finished
Messrs. Winters and Colbath erected the "Glenbrook Hotel," which
finally came into the hands of Messrs. Yerington and Bliss, who,
later, were the builders of the railway, the owners of most of the
surrounding timberlands, and who had practical control of the major
portion of the lumber interests. But prior to this a lumber-mill was
built by J.H.F. Goff and George Morrill in the northern part of the
town. This did a good business, for even in those early days common
lumber was worth $25.00 per thousand feet, and clear lumber, $45.00.
The mill was soon destroyed by fire, but the site was bought by A.H.
Davis and Son, who erected a new mill, which they operated for a
while and then sold to Wells, Fargo & Co. It was not until 1873 that
Yerington & Bliss came to Glenbrook. They revolutionized the lumber
industry. While Captain Pray had long used a steam tug to raft logs
across Lake Tahoe, the lumber itself was hauled down to Carson and
Virginia City. Now, owning large areas of timberland, operating two
and then three saw-mills in Glenbrook, and several others in the
nearby mountains, Messrs. Yerington & Bliss sought easier means of
transportation for their merchandisable product. They constructed
dams and reservoirs, with V flumes in a number of places, making
them converge as near as possible at the Summit, some six miles from
Glenbrook. To this point they built a narrow gauge railway for the
purpose of transporting the millions of feet of lumber sawn at their
mills.
From Summit a large V flume was constructed down Clear Creek Canyon
into Carson City, and into this flume a constant stream of water was
poured from the reservoirs which carried upon its bosom another stream
of boards, timber, studding, joists and sheathing, the two streams
emptying simultaneously just outside of Carson City at a point on the
Virginia & Truckee railway, where the lumber was loaded and thence
shipped to its place of consumption.
That tremendous amounts of lumber were being manufactured is shown
by the fact that the official records of Douglas County, Nevada, for
1875, give 21,700,000 feet as the product for that year.
One department of the lumber business should not be overlooked in this
connection. As the timber disappeared from the mountain slopes nearest
Glenbrook, the operators were compelled to go further afield for their
logs. These were cut on the mountain slopes north, south, east and
west, and sent down the "chutes" into the Lake. Where the ground was
level great wagons, drawn by ten, sixteen, twenty oxen, hauled the
logs to the shore, where they were dumped into the water. Here they
were confined in "booms," consisting of a number of long, thin poles
fastened together at the ends with chains, which completely encircled
a "raft" of logs arranged in the form of a V. The raft was then
attached, by strong cables, to a steamer and towed to Glenbrook, where
the mills were so located that the logs were drawn up from the Lake
directly upon the saw-carriages. The size of some of the rafts may be
imagined when it is known that they yielded from 250,000 to 300,000
feet of lumber.
The principal vessel for this purpose at the time I first visited Lake
Tahoe in 1881 was an iron tug, called the _Meteor_. It was built
in 1876 at Wilmington, Delaware, by Harlan, Hollingsworth & Co., then
taken apart, shipped by rail to Carson City and hauled by teams to
Lake Tahoe. It was a propeller, eighty feet long and ten feet beam,
and cost $18,000.
The first store erected in Glenbrook was placed on piles over the
water. This was built in 1874, by J.A. Rigby and A. Childers. One
morning the latter partner disappeared, and it was surmised that he
had fallen into the water and was drowned. New partners were taken
into the firm, but in January, 1877, the store was burned, and it was
not re-erected on its original site.
When the lumber interests and the railway were removed Glenbrook
declined, until it was the most deserted looking place possible. Then
the sons of Mr. Bliss, one of whom was born there, cleared away all
the evidences of its former lumbering activities, built a handsome and
commodious modern hotel on the most scenic point, and re-established
the place as a choice resort on the Nevada shore, as described
elsewhere.
_Incline_. It will be a source of interest, even to many who know
Lake Tahoe well, that there used to be a town named Incline on its
shores. In the curve of Crystal Bay, a few miles from where the scars
show where the water escaped from Marlette Lake flume, this town
was located in 1882. It was the source of supplies for the lumbering
interests of the Sierra Nevada Wood and Lumber Company, and received
its name from a sixteen-hundred feet incline up which lumber was
hauled. The incline was operated by an endless cable, somewhat after
the style of Mount Lowe, in Southern California, the car on one side
going up, and on the other coming down one trip, and _vice versa_
the next. The lumber thus raised was thrown into the flume, carried
therein around to Lake View, on the line of the Virginia and Truckee
railway, there loaded on cars and shipped to Carson and Virginia,
largely for use in the mines.
When the logging interests were active the place had quite a
population, had its own post-office and was an election precinct. When
the logging interests waned the town declined, and in 1898 the post
office was discontinued. Now nothing remains but the old incline,
grown up with weeds and chaparral. New towns are springing up at Al
Tahoe, Lakeside and Carnelian Bay which will soon demand a revision of
this chapter.
[Illustration: Lake Tahoe from Tahoe Tavern]
[Illustration: Steamer Tahoe Rounding Rubicon Point, Lake Tahoe]
[Illustration: McKinney's and Moana Villa, With Rubicon Peaks
in the Distance, Lake Tahoe]
[Illustration: Steamer Landing, McKinney's, Lake Tahoe]