t no book has been
published on Lake Tahoe and its surrounding country of mountains,
forests, glacial valleys, lakes and canyons, for I am confident that
in one or two decades from now its circle of admirers and regular
visitors will include people from all over the civilized world, all of
whom will declare that it is incomparable as a lake resort, and that
its infinite variety of charm, delight and healthful allurement can
never adequately be told.

Discovered by the "Pathfinder" Fremont; described in the early days of
California history and literature by John Le Conte, Mark Twain, Thomas
Starr King, Ben C. Truman, and later by John Vance Cheney and others;
for countless centuries the fishing haunt of the peaceable Nevada
_Washoes_, who first called it Tahoe--High or Clear Water--and
of the California _Monos_; the home of many of their interesting
legends and folk-lore tales; occasionally the scene of fierce
conflicts between the defending Indians and those who would drive
them away, it early became the object of the jealous and inconsequent
squabbling of politicians. Its discoverer had named it Mountain Lake,
or Lake Bonpland, the latter name after the traveling and exploring
companion of Baron von Humboldt, whose name is retained in the
Humboldt River of Nevada, but when the first reasonably accurate
survey of its shores was made, John Bigler was the occupant of the
gubernatorial chair of the State of California and it was named after
him. Then, later, for purely political reasons, it was changed to
Tahoe, and finally back to Bigler, which name it still officially
retains, though of the thousands who visit it annually but a very
small proportion have ever heard that such a name was applied to it.

In turn, soon after its discovery, Tahoe became the scene of a mining
excitement that failed to "pan out," the home of vast logging and
lumber operations and the objective point to which several famous
"Knights of the Lash" drove world-noted men and women in swinging
Concord coaches. In summer it is the haunt of Nature's most dainty,
glorious, and alluring picturesqueness; in winter the abode, during
some days, of the Storm King with his cohorts of hosts of clouds,
filled with rain, hail, sleet and snow, of fierce winds, of dread
lightnings, of majestic displays of rudest power. Suddenly, after
having covered peak and slope, meadow and shore, with snow to a depth
of six, eight, ten or more feet, the Storm King retires and