of giant granite walls,--as Eagle; or sprawling in the open,--as Loon,
Spider, etc.

What a variety of sizes, shapes and characteristics they present.
There are no two alike, yet they are nearly all one in their
attractive beauty, in the purity of their waters, and in the glory,
majesty, sublimity and beauty mirrored on their placid faces.

In poetic fashion, yet with scientific accuracy, John Muir thus
describes their origin in his _Mountains of California_, a book
every Tahoe lover should possess:

When a mountain lake is born,--when, like a young eye, it
first opens to the light,--it is an irregular, expressionless
crescent, inclosed in banks of rock and ice,--bare, glaciated
rock on the lower side, the rugged snout of a glacier on the
upper. In this condition it remains for many a year, until at
length, toward the end of some auspicious cluster of seasons,
the glacier recedes beyond the upper margin of the basin,
leaving it open from shore to shore for the first time,
thousands of years after its conception beneath the glacier
that excavated its basin. The landscape, cold and bare, is
reflected in its pure depths; the winds ruffle its glassy
surface, and the sun thrills it with throbbing spangles,
while its waves begin to lap and murmur around its leafless
shores,--sun-spangles during the day and reflected stars
at night its only flowers, the winds and the snow its only
visitors. Meanwhile, the glacier continues to recede, and
numerous rills, still younger than the lake itself, bring
down glacier-mud, sand-grains, and pebbles, giving rise to
margin-rings and plats of soil. To these fresh soil-beds come
many a waiting plant. First, a hardy carex with arching
leaves and a spike of brown flowers; then, as the seasons grow
warmer, and the soil-beds deeper and wider, other sedges take
their appointed places, and these are joined by blue gentians,
daisies, dodecatheons, violets, honey-worts, and many a lowly
moss. Shrubs also hasten in time to the new gardens,--kalmia
with its glossy leaves and purple flowers, the arctic willow,
making soft woven carpets, together with the healthy bryanthus
and cassiope, the fairest and dearest of them all. Insects
now enrich the air, frogs pipe cheerily in the shallows, soon
followed by the ouzel, which is the first bird to visit a
glacier lake, as the sedge is the first of plants.
So the young lake grows in beauty, becoming more and more
humanly lovable from century to century. Groves of aspen
spring up, and hardy pines, and the hemlock spruce, until it
is richly overshadowed and embowered. But while its shores
are becoming enriched, the soil-beds creep out with incessant
growth, contracting its area, while the lighter mud-particles
deposited on the bottom cause it to grow shallower, until at
length the last remnant of the lake vanishes,--closed forever
in ripe and natural old age. And now its feeding-stream goes
winding on without halting through the new gardens and groves
that have taken its place.

The length of the life of any lake depends ordinarily upon the
capacity of its basin, as compared with the carrying power of
the streams that flow into it, the character of the rocks over
which these streams flow, and the relative position of the
lake toward other lakes. In a series whose basins lie in the
same canyon, and are fed by one and the same main stream,
the uppermost will, of course, vanish first unless some other
lake-filling agent comes in to modify the result; because at
first it receives nearly all of the sediments that the stream
brings down, only the finest of the mud-particles being
carried through the highest of the series to the next below.
Then the next higher, and the next would be successively
filled, and the lowest would be the last to vanish. But this
simplicity as to duration is broken in upon in various ways,
chiefly through the action of side-streams that enter the
lower lakes direct. For, notwithstanding many of these side
tributaries are quite short, and, during late summer, feeble,
they all become powerful torrents in spring-time when the
snow is melting, and carry not only sand and pine-needles, but
large trunks and bowlders tons in weight, sweeping them down
their steeply inclined channels and into the lake basins with
astounding energy. Many of these side affluents also have
the advantage of access to the main lateral moraines of the
vanished glacier that occupied the canyon, and upon these they
draw for lake-filling material, while the main trunk stream
flows mostly over clean glacier pavements, where but little
moraine matter is ever left for them to carry. Thus a small
rapid stream with abundance of loose transportable material
within its reach may fill up an extensive basin in a few centuries,
while a large perennial trunk stream, flowing over clean,
enduring pavements, though ordinarily a hundred times larger,
may not fill a smaller basin in thousands of years.

[Illustration: Tamarack and Echo Lakes]

[Illustration: Cascade Lake, Near the Automobile Bouldvard, Lake Tahoe]

[Illustration: Memorial Cross at Donner Lake]

Many striking examples of these successive processes may be seen in
the Tahoe region, as, for instance, Squaw Valley, which lies between
the spurs of Squaw Peak and Granite Chief. This was undoubtedly
scooped out by a glacier that came down from Squaw Peak and Granite
Chief. The course of the ice-sheet was down to the Truckee River.
When the glacier began to shrink it left its terminal moraine as a
dam between the basin above and the river below. In due time, as the
glacier finally receded to a mere bank of half-glacierized snow on the
upper portions of the two peaks, the basin filled up with water and
thus formed a lake. Slowly the sand and rocky debris from the peaks
filled up the lake, and in the course of time a break was made in
the moraine, so that the creek flowed over or through it and the lake
ceased to exist, while the meadow came into existence.




CHAPTER X

DONNER LAKE AND ITS TRAGIC HISTORY


Closely allied to Lake Tahoe by its near proximity, its situation on
the Emigrant Gap automobile road from Sacramento to Tahoe, and that
it is seen from Mt. Rose, Mt. Watson, and many Tahoe peaks, is Dormer
Lake,--lake of tragic memories in the early day pioneer history of
this region.

It was in 1846 that James T. Reed, of Springfield, Ill., determined to
move to California. This land of promise was then a Mexican province,
but Reed carefully and thoroughly had considered the question and
had decided that, for his family's good, it was well to emigrate. He
induced two other Illinois families to accompany him, those of George
and Jacob Donner. Thursday, April 15th, 1846, the party started, full
of high hopes for the future. The story of how they met with others
bound for California or Oregon, at Independence, Mo., journeyed
together over the plains and prairies to Fort Hall, where Lansford W.
Hastings, either in person or by his "Open Letter," led part of the
band to take his new road, which ultimated in dire tragedy, is well
known.

The Oregon division of the divided party took the right-hand trail,
while the other took the left-hand to Fort Bridger. It is the
experiences of this latter party with which we are concerned.
Misfortune came to them thick and fast from this time on. The wagons
were stalled in Weber Canyon and had to be hauled bodily up the steep
cliffs to the plateau above; some of their stock ran away, after
heartbreaking struggles over the Salt Lake desert; mirages intensified
their burning thirst by their disappointing lure; Indians threatened
them, and finally, to add despair to their wretchedness, a quarrel
arose in which Mr. Reed, in self-defence, killed one of the drivers,
named Snyder. Reed was banished from the party under circumstances of
unjustifiable severity which amounted to inhuman cruelty, and his wife
and helpless children, the oldest of them, Virginia, only twelve years
of age, had to take the rest of the journey without the presence of
their natural protector. Food supplies began to give out, the snow
fell earlier than usual and added to their difficulties, and before
they reached the region of the Truckee River they were compelled to
go on short rations. Then, under suspicious circumstances one of the
party, Wolfinger, was lost, and though his wife was informed that he
had been murdered by Indians, there was always a doubt in the minds of
some as to whether that explanation were the true one. On the 19th
of October, an advance guard that had gone on to California for food,
returned, bringing seven mules ladened with flour and jerked beef. The
story of this trip I have recounted more fully in the book _Heroes
of California_. Without this additional food the party never could
have survived. On the 22nd they crossed the Truckee River for the
forty-ninth time.

Heavy snow now began to intercept their weary way. They were finally
compelled to take refuge in an abandoned cabin near the shore of what
is now known as Donner Lake, and there, under circumstances of horror
and terror that can never fully be comprehended and appreciated, the
devoted men, women and children were imprisoned in the snow until the
first relief party reached them, February 19th, with scant provisions,
brought in at life's peril on snowshoes. A "Forlorn Hope" had tried to
force its passage over the snowy heights. Fifteen brave men and women
determined to see if they could not win their way over and send
back help. Out of the fifteen seven only survived and reached the
Sacramento Valley, and they were compelled to sustain life by eating
the flesh of those who had perished.

The second relief party was organized by Mr. Reed,--the banished
leader--and thirty-one of the party were still in camp at Donner Lake
when he arrived, with nine stalwart men to help, on March 1st. On the
3rd nine of them left, with seventeen of the starving emigrants, but
they were caught in a fearful snow-storm as they crossed the summit,
and ten miles below were compelled to go into camp. Their provisions
gave out, Mrs. Graves died, leaving an emaciated babe in arms and
three other children, one a five-year-old, who died the next day.
Isaac Donner died the third night. Reed and Greenwood, carrying Reed's
two children, Mattie and James Jr., with one of the survivors who
could walk, now struggled down the mountain in the hope that they
could reach help to go back and finish the rescue work. These met
Mr. Woodworth who organized the third relief party, of seven men, who
returned to "Starved Camp," to find the survivors begging piteously
for something to eat. This relief party divided into two parts--one to
go over the summit to give help to the needy there, the other to get
the "Starved Camp" remnant to safety. The first section succeeded in
their mission of mercy and a few days later caught up with the other
section from Starved Camp.

Mr. C.F. McGlashan, formerly editor of the _Truckee Republican_,
has written a graphic account, with great care and desire for
accuracy, of the complete expedition, which gives the heart-rending
story with completeness, and I expect to publish ere long the personal
story of Virginia Reed Murphy, who is still alive, one of the few
survivors of the ill-fated party.

[Illustration: The Steamer at the Wharf, Tahoe Tavern, Lake Tahoe]

[Illustration: Donner Lake, on the Automobile Highway from Sacramento
to Truckee and Lake Tahoe]

[Illustration: The Canyon of the Truckee River in Winter]

[Illustration: Automobiling along the Picturesque Truckee River,
on the way to Lake Tahoe]

Through privations and hardships untold the survivors were ultimately
enabled to reach Sutter's Fort, only to find the most vile and fearful
stories set in circulation about them. Four separate relief parties
were sent from California, and their adventures were almost as tragic
as those of the sufferers they sought to help. Bret Harte, in his
_Gabriel Conroy_, has told much--though in the exaggerated and
unjust form the stories were first circulated--of the Donner tragedy,
and it has been made the subject of much newspaper and other writing
and discussion.

An unusual trip that can be taken from Tahoe Tavern is down to the
foot of Donner Lake and then, turning to the left, follow the old
emigrant and stage-road. It has not been used for fifty years, but it
is full of interest. There are many objects that remain to tell of its
fascinating history. Over it came many who afterwards became pioneers
in hewing out this new land from the raw material of which lasting
commonwealths are made. Turning south to Cold Stream, it passes by
Summit Valley on to Starved Camp. The stumps of the trees cut down by
the unfortunate pioneers are still standing.

It was always a difficult road to negotiate, the divide between Mt.
Lincoln and Anderson Peak being over 7500 feet high. But those heroes
of 1848-49 made it, triumphing over every barrier and winning for
themselves what Joaquin Miller so poetically has accorded them,
where he declares that "the snow-clad Sierras are their everlasting
monuments."

This road is now, in places, almost obliterated. One section for three
miles is grown up. Trees and chaparral cover it and hide it from the
face of any but the most studiously observant. When the road that
takes to the north of Donner Lake was built in 1861-62 and goes
directly and on an easier grade by Emigrant Gap to Dutch Flat, this
road by Cold Stream was totally abandoned. For years the county road
officials have ignored its existence, and now it is as if it never had
been, save for its memories and the fragments of wagons, broken and
abandoned in the fierce conflict with stern Nature, and suggesting
the heart-break and struggle the effort to reach California caused in
those early days.




CHAPTER XI

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 Fremont 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 Fremont 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.




CHAPTER XII

BY RAIL TO LAKE TAHOE


Lake Tahoe is fifteen miles from Truckee, which is one of the mountain
stations on the main line of the Southern Pacific Railway (Central
Route), two hundred and eight miles from San Francisco, thirty-five
miles from Reno, Nevada, and five hundred and seventy-four miles
from Ogden, Utah. By the San Joaquin Valley route via Sacramento, the
distance to Los Angeles is five hundred and eighty miles, or by San
Francisco and the Coast Line six hundred and ninety-two miles.

During the summer season trains run frequently through, making Tahoe
easily accessible.

From the east the traveler comes over what is practically the long
known and historic overland stage-road, over which so many thousands
of gold-seekers and emigrants came in the days of California's gold
excitement. Every mile has some story of pioneer bravery or heroism,
of hairbreadth escape from hostile Indians or fortuitous deliverance
from storm or disaster. It was over this route the pilgrims came who
sought in Utah a land of freedom where they might follow their
own peculiar conceptions of religion and duty, untrammeled and
uninterfered with by hostile onlookers and disbelievers. Here came the
home-seekers of the earlier day, when California was still a province
of Mexico; those who had been lured by the glowing stories of the Land
of the Sun Down Sea, where orange and lemon, vine and fig flourished
and indicated the semi-tropic luxuriance and fruitfulness of the land.

[Illustration: Truckee, Calif., Where Travelers Take Trains for
Lake Tahoe]

[Illustration: Crossing the Truckee River Near Deer Park Station]

[Illustration: Placerville, El Dorado Co., California]

[Illustration:  Vineyard on the Automotive Highway between Placerville
and Lake Tahoe]

From the west the railroad traverses, in the main, the continuation
of this old overland road. After leaving the fertile valley of the
Sacramento and rising into the glorious foot-hills of the Sierras,
every roll of the billows of the mountains and canyons wedged in
between is redolent of memories of the argonauts and emigrants. Yonder
are Yuba, Dutch Flat, the North Fork, the South Fork (of the American
River), Colfax, Gold Run, Midas, Blue Canyon, Emigrant Gap, Grass
Valley, Michigan Bluff, Grizzly Gulch, Alpha, Omega, Eagle Bird, Red
Dog, Chips Flat, Quaker Hill and You Bet. Can you not see these camps,
alive with rough-handed, full-bearded, sun-browned, stalwart men,
and hear the clang of hammer upon drill, the shock of the blast, the
wheeling away and crash of waste rock as it is thrown over the dump
pile?

And then, as we look up and forward into the sea of mountain-waves
into the heart of which we ride, who but Joaquin Miller can describe
the scene?

Here lifts the land of clouds! Fierce mountain forms,
Made white with everlasting snows, look down
Through mists of many canyons, mighty storms
That stretch from Autumn's purple drench and drown
The yellow hem of Spring. Tall cedars frown
Dark-brow'd, through banner'd clouds that stretch and stream
Above the sea from snowy mountain crown.
The heavens roll, and all things drift or seem
To drift about and drive like some majestic dream.

And it is in the very bosom of this majestic scenery that Lake Tahoe
lies enshrined. Its entrancing beauty is such that we do not wonder
that these triumphant monarchs of the "upper seas" cluster around it
as if in reverent adoration, and that they wear their vestal virgin
robes of purest white in token of the purity of their worship.

Thoughts like these flood our hearts and minds as we reach Truckee,
the point where we leave the Southern Pacific cars and change to those
of the narrow-gauge Lake Tahoe Railway and Transportation Company.
After a brief wait, long enough to allow transfer of baggage, we
leave, from the same station, for the fifteen miles' ride to Tahoe
Tavern on the very edge of the Lake.

This ride is itself romantic and beautiful. On the day trains
observation cars are provided, and the hour is one of delightful,
restful and enchanting scenes. The Truckee River is never out of sight
and again and again it reminds one in its foaming speed of Joaquin
Miller's expressive phrase:

See where the cool white river runs.

Before 1900 this ride used to be taken by stage, the railway having
been built in that year. It is interesting here to note that the
rails, the locomotives, the passenger and freight cars were all
transported bodily across the Lake from Glenbrook, on the Nevada side.
There they were in use for many years mainly for hauling logs and
lumber to and from the mills on the summit, whence it was "flumed" to
Carson City.

In those days logging was carried on in the Truckee River Canyon and
the visitor would often have the pleasure of seeing logs "shoot the
chutes" into the river, by which they were floated to the mills at
Truckee. Here is a picture:

Tree, bush, and flower grow and blossom upon either side; and
a little bird, with a throat like a thrush, warbles a canticle
of exquisite musical modulations, so to speak. But the most
stirring sight of all is the system of logging carried on by
the mill companies. "Look! Quick!" ejaculates the driver; and
your gaze is directed to a monster log that comes furiously
dashing from the summit down a chute a thousand feet in length
with twice the ordinary speed of a locomotive. So rapid is
its descent that it leaves a trail of smoke behind it, and
sometimes kindles a fire among the slivers along its way.
Ah! it strikes the water! In an instant there is an inverted
Niagara in the air, resplendent with prismatic and transparent
veils of spray[1].

[Footnote 1: John Vance Cheney in _Lippincott's_.]

The main portion of the canyon is walled in by abrupt acclivities,
upon which majestic trees used to grow, but where now only the growth
of the past twenty-five to fifty years is found, doing its best to
hide the scars and wounds of the logging days.

The river, issuing from the Lake above, dashes down its wild way in
resistless freedom. It is a rapid, all but savage stream, widening
occasionally into sheltered pools exceedingly dark and deep. The
bowlders in its channel, and those crowding down into it from its
farther bank, cause it to eddy and foam with fierce but becoming
pride.

A few miles from the Tavern we pass the scene of the Squaw Valley
mining excitement where the two towns of Knoxville and Claraville
arose as if by magic, tent cities of thousands of inhabitants, lured
hither by a dream of gold, too soon to fade away, leaving nothing but
distress behind.

Deer Park station suggests the leaving point for that charmingly
picturesque resort, snuggling in the heart of Bear Canyon. Now we
pass the masses of tuffaceous breccia that "Pap" Church, the old
stage-driver used to call the Devil's Pulpit, and the devil's this and
that or the other, until many a traveler would wish they were all with
the devil.

This is a remnant of the vast mass of volcanic rock that in long ago
prehistoric times was poured out in molten sheets over the region,
and that formed the range we shall shortly see at the north end of the
Lake--the Mount Pluto range. At some later period either earthquake
convulsion started the break which ultimately eroded and disintegrated
into the great gorge through which the railway has brought us, or
grinding glacier cut the pathway for us.

Here, on the right, is a tiny swinging foot-bridge over the river.
This is the beginning, the suggestion, for the vast suspension bridges
that have allowed the world to cross the great North River from New
York to Brooklyn, and that span great rivers and gorges elsewhere in
the world. Nay! scarcely the beginning. That you find further up and
deeper down in the High Sierras and their shaded and wooded canyons,
where wild vines throw their clinging tendrils across from one shore
to another of foaming creeks, and gradually grow in girth and strength
until they form bridges, over which chipmunks, squirrels, porcupines,
'coons, coyotes, and finally mountain lions, bears, and even men cross
with safety. There is the _real origin_ of the suspension bridge.
But this is a miniature, a model, a suggestion of the big bridges.
It affords ready access to the house on the other side. In winter,
however, the boards are taken up, as the heavy snows that fall and
accumulate might wreck it.

It is hard to realize that, a few months from now, when winter begins,
this railroad must perforce cease its operations. Snow falls, here,
where the sun is now smiling so beneficently upon laughing meadows,
dotted here and there with dainty flowers, to a depth of ten and even
twenty feet. The mail--necessarily much reduced in winter--is first of
all carried in sleighs, then, as the snows deepen, on snow-shoes,
so that those who stay to preserve the "summer hotels" from winter's
ravages may not feel entirely shut out from the living world beyond.

But there is nothing that suggests snow now. We are enjoying the
delights of a summer day or evening, and know that we are near our
journey's end. Suddenly there is a long call of the whistle, a short
curve, and if in the daytime, the Lake suddenly appears, or, if at
night, the lights of the Tavern, and our rail journey is done. We are
deposited in Fairyland, for whether it be day or evening, the Lake
or the Tavern, our senses are thrilled and charmed by everything that
appears.




CHAPTER XIII

THE WISHBONE AUTOMOBILE ROUTE TO AND AROUND LAKE TAHOE


This is the name given to the 260-mile automobile route to and from
Lake Tahoe, going in from Sacramento over the world-famed Emigrant
Gap and Donner Lake road, around the western shore of Lake Tahoe,
from Tahoe Tavern to Tallac, and thence back to Sacramento over the
historic and picturesque Placerville road. While both of the two main
arms of the "wishbone" carry the traveler over the Sierras, the roads
are wonderfully different. On the Emigrant Gap arm the road seems to
have been engineered somewhat after the Indian fashion, viz., to allow
the wildest and most expansive outlooks, while the Placerville route
is largely confined to the picturesque and beautiful canyon of the
South Fork of the American River. Both have honored histories and both
are fascinating from the scenic standpoint and the difference in the
two routes merely accentuates the charm of the trip, when compared
with the new portion of the road, the connecting link that binds
them together and now makes possible the ride around the lake shore.
Experience has demonstrated, however, that it is better to make the
circuit as herein outlined.

A brief sketch of the history of the building of the Emigrant Gap
portion of this road cannot fail to be of interest.

It was practically followed by a host of the emigrants who sought
California during the great gold excitement of 1848-9. It was also one
of the earliest routes used between Sacramento and the mines of the
High Sierras. In 1849 it was established from Sacramento to Auburn,
Grass Valley and Nevada City and to-day there is practically little
deviation from the original route. In 1850 the mines on the Forest
Hill Divide were discovered and a branch road from Auburn was built to
that section. At Illinoistown (now Colfax) the road branched, one arm
crossing the North Fork of the American River to Iowa Hill and other
camps on that divide, while the main road continued up the Sierras to
Gold Run, Dutch Flat and other points higher up.

Until the Central Pacific Railway was built in the 'sixties
Illinoistown was the junction for the different Camps in Nevada County
and the Bear River and Iowa Hill Divides. The population of these
regions in those early days was much greater than at the present time,
yet the demands of the modern automobile have so improved the roads
that they are much superior to what the large population of those days
enjoyed.

In 1862 the California legislature authorized the supervisors of
certain counties to call special elections to vote upon the question
as to whether those counties should subscribe towards the building of
the Central Pacific Railway, and to authorize them to issue bonds for
the amounts they decided to expend. San Francisco county subscribed
$1,000,000, Sacramento county $300,000 and Placer county $250,000.

In 1863 the Railroad Company began its work of grading the road bed at
Sacramento, and yet, in 1865 it was only completed to Alta, a distance
of 68 miles. At the same time it was making strenuous efforts to
divert passenger and freight traffic for Virginia City and other
Nevada points from the Placerville route. This had become possible
because of the fact that when the railway line was actually built as
far as Newcastle the engineers realized that before they could build
the rest of their railroad they would need to construct a highway of
easy grade, which would enable them to haul the necessary supplies for
constructing the tunnels, cuts and bridges. Accordingly a survey was
made up to Truckee, over the Nevada line into Reno and Virginia City,
securing the best possible grade for a wagon road, and this was rushed
to a hasty completion.

Naturally, they were anxious to gain all the paying traffic possible,
and especially under the adverse conditions under which they were
laboring. But, needless to say, this caused the fiercest hostility
on the part of their competitors, laid them open to serious charges,
which, later, were made, and that for a time threatened desperate
consequences, as I will now proceed to relate.

In the late fall of 1864 the Sacramento Valley Railroad (the rival of
the Central Pacific) arranged to make a record trip from Freeport
to Virginia City by the Placerville route. Though the officials
endeavored to keep the matter secret, it leaked out and immediately
the Central Pacific planned to circumvent their aim. They stationed
relays along their own line to compete, and Nature and Fate seemed to
come to their aid. A fierce storm arose the day before the start was
to be made, and it fell heavier on the Placerville than on the other
route. Though the drivers of each line did their utmost, feeling their
own personal honor, as well as that of their company at stake, the
heavy rains at Strawberry arrested the Placerville stage and made
further progress impossible, while the other route was enabled
to complete its trip on record time. Mr. L.L. Robinson, the
Superintendent of the Sacramento Valley Railroad, who himself
accompanied the stage, wired from Strawberry, "Heavy rains, heavy
roads, slow time"--reluctant to own a possible defeat. But the
Sacramento _Union_, the organ of the Central Pacific, came out
the next morning with glowing accounts of the successful run of
the stages over the Emigrant Gap route and ridiculed Mr. Robinson's
telegram, ironically comparing it with Caesar's classic message to the
Roman Senate: "Veni, Vidi, Vici."

It was such struggles for local business as this that led the San
Francisco _Alta California_, a paper bitterly opposed to the
Central Pacific, to denounce the railway, in 1866, as the "Dutch Flat
Swindle." It claimed that the railway would never be built further
than Alta and that it was built so far only for the purpose of
controlling passenger and freight traffic over their wagon road to
Virginia City and other Nevada points. Other San Francisco papers
joined in the fight and so energetically was it conducted, and so
powerful became the opposition that they actually prevailed upon the
people of San Francisco to repudiate their contract to purchase a
million dollars' worth of Central Pacific stock and compromise by
practically making the railroad company a present of $600,000 (which
had already been expended) provided they would release the City and
County from their pledge to raise the remaining $400,000.

The folly of this action is now so apparent that it is hard to
conceive how even political and civic jealousy or hatred could have
been so blinded to self-interest. The Central Pacific engineers had
undertaken one of the most difficult pieces of railway engineering in
the world, and the financiers of the company were having an equally
desperate struggle. During the Civil War the finances of the nation
were at a low ebb and money was exceedingly difficult to secure. Yet
in spite of all obstacles the company had gone ahead in perfect good
faith, and at that very time were hauling rails and track material
from Alta, and soon from Cisco, to Truckee (then called Coburn Station
on the old Emigrant Gap road), and had actually built the
railroad from Truckee down into Nevada and as far east as Wadsworth,
or a little beyond, before the tunnel at Summit was completed.

[Illustration: Automobiling along the Truckee River]