Anything 360 feet high, and 800 feet wide is hard not to notice. That kind of bulk might also get in the way of progress. Tahoe’s Cave Rock is that big, and was definitely impeding progress toward the completion of the Lincoln Highway, the first U.S. coast to coast road. The problem was solved by […]

It seems like an early settler named Sierra Nevada would be well known around these parts, but the opposite is true. Few have heard of her. Born in1854 in Nevada City, Sierra was four years old when her parents, John and Mehitable Phillips, decided to become inn-keepers. The little family moved to a property about two […]

Occasionally, when reading about some early plans for Lake Tahoe, the realization hits that it is a slight miracle we have a lake at all. For instance, in 1865, a San Francisco based engineer, with the elegant name of Alexis Waldemar Von Schmidt, created the Lake Tahoe and San Francisco Water Works Company. Mr. Von […]

For years, fires in our forests have been extinguished as soon as possible. That practice, when combined with warmer temperatures, and drier conditions, has made for larger and more intense fires. In fact, new words have been coined to better describe the immensity of recent fires; a megafire is being used to describe 100,000 acre […]