Rails Around Lake Tahoe: Steam Trains and Steamboats

Mallory Hope Ferrell hardcover

Lake Tahoe, nestled on the eastern flank of the High Sierra, is among California's loveliest places. In the 19th and early 20th century it was the site of extensive railroad lumbering operations, which gradually gave way to increasing tourism. The beautifully clear waters of the lake provided transportation for not only the timber, but for passengers, mail and freight aboard the many steamboats that plied its blue surface. In this magnificent setting, logging railroads and steamboats of the Carson & Tahoe Lumber & Fluming Company brought huge logs to lakeshore sawmills. The Lake Tahoe Narrow Gauge Railroad and its connecting Clear Creek Flume took the timbers, lumber and cordwood up and over the divide to reach the Comstock Bonanza towns. By the late 1890s, most of the virgin stands had been cut. In the early 1900s, tourists began to flock to Lake Tahoe. They rode on a new narrow gauge, the Lake Tahoe Railway & Transportation Company. Eventually the Southern Pacific took over the property and converted it to standard gauge. The SP branch was abandoned in 1941. This is the story of the many logging railroads that operated in and near the Tahoe basin, with hundreds of rare photographs, maps, plans and illustrations.