It was the winter of 1844 when John C. Fremont, pathfinder, first laid his eyes on a great oval lake, engulfed on all sides by sentinels of granite.
In his journal, Fremont wrote "With Mr. Preuss I ascended today the highest peak to the right; from which we had a beautiful view of a mountain and lake at our feet, about 15 miles in length so entirely surrounded by mountains that we could not discover an outlet."
That Feb. 14, Fremont and his topographer Charles Preuss had moved ahead of their scouting party, making their way through deep snowdrifts to ascend the peak and "discover" what is now Lake Tahoe. Fremont named the lake Bonpland after botanist Amande Bonpland, also a member of the trek.
Some of the world's greatest discoveries have been accidental, and
this was true of Fremont's discovery of Lake Tahoe. His odyssey started
on May 29, 1843. Fremont and his party left Kansas, Mo., with plans to
survey the boundaries of the Great Basin starting at the Oregon Trail
in the north. He already knew of the stately Sierra Nevada range, for
he had stood on the highest peak in the Rocky Mountains, looked west
across the Great Basin and viewed the Sierra far in the distance.
After reaching Klamath Lake in Oregon they turned south to search for the legendary Mary's Lake and Buenaventura River.
Mary's Lake was reputed to be a beautiful semitropical environment and the Buenaventura was said to be a great flowing river from the Rocky Mountains to the Bay of San Francisco.
At the time of Fremont's exploration, the Sierra was considered "terra incognita." However, others had been there before Fremont and his cohorts. Furtrappers after beaver pelts rode through in the 1820s and '30s. And scouts had been sent to check out the California coastal territory, then under the flag of Mexico. And when more was known about how to traverse the Sierra, larger parties with wagons started West in 1844, followed by others. Also, Christopher "Kit" Carson, tracker and scout, had crossed the Sierra several times since his first trip in 1839. Carson scouted for Fremont on the Lake Tahoe discovery, and the two teamed up again in 1845-46.
But even before white furtrappers and scouts set foot on Tahoe earth, a Native American tribe, called the Washoe, had been living there. Each spring, they migrated from Truckee, Carson and Alpine valleys to the lake, which they called Da-ow-a-ga (edge of the lake). White settlers adopted the first two syllables of the name, coming up with the Anglicized "Ta-ho." The popular name Tahoe wasn't officially adopted until 1945.
The Washoe lived in harmony with the land. Expert basket weavers, hunters and fishermen, the Washoe considered Tahoe a sacred site. They gathered there for annual summer reunions, where they gave thanks and prayers for the blessings of abundance from the "Maker of all Things" and exchanged their knowledge with each other. When they left Tahoe in the fall, it is said that the area looked as if they had never been there.
However, the arrival of white settlers in the mid-1800s brought change, stripping the forests of its timber for railroads, mines and housing, and introducing foreign diseases. Forcing out the Washoe's traditional way of hunting and fishing, the Washoe population decreased from 3,500 to 500.
Around the turn of the century, the area became a mecca for the well-to-do. But in 1945 when the highway was cut through, the area became easily accessible to everyone.
Anyone who has seen Lake Tahoe and its mountains understands its attraction.........................
To read the rest of the Lake Tahoe story, pick up the Summer, 1996 issue of Around Here. And to make sure you don't miss any other great stories and features, we invite you to subscribe to Around Here.