Native People The area around Lake Tahoe was originally inhabited by the Washoe tribe of Native Americans. Lake Tahoe was the center and heart of Washoe Indian territory, including the upper valleys of the Walker, Carson, and Truckee Rivers. The English name for Lake Tahoe derives from the Washo dá’aw, "lake".

1844: Exploration Lt. John C. Frémont was the first non-indigenous person to see Lake Tahoe, during Fremont's second exploratory expedition on February 14. 1844. John Calhoun Johnson, Sierra explorer and founder of "Johnson's Cutoff" (now U.S. Route 50), was the first white man to see Meeks Bay and from a peak above the lake he named Fallen Leaf Lake after his Indian guide. His first job in the west was in the government service, carrying the mail on snowshoes from Placerville to Nevada City, during which time he named the lake "Lake Bigler" in honor of California’s governor John Bigler. In 1853 William Eddy, the surveyor general of California, identified Tahoe as Lake Bigler. In 1862 the U.S. Department of the Interior first introduced the name Tahoe. Both names were used until well into the next century. The lake didn't receive its official and final designation as Lake Tahoe until 1945. California and Nevada reached the compromise to partition Tahoe between the two when California became a state. With the state line east of the approximate centerline of the lake and then at 39 degrees north latitude, the state border runs southeasterly towards the Colorado River.

1848: Mining Era Upon discovery of gold in the South Fork of the American River in 1848, thousands of gold seekers going west passed near the basin on their way to the gold fields. European civilization first made its mark in the Lake Tahoe basin with the 1858 discovery of the Comstock Lode, a silver deposit just 15 miles (24 km) to the east in Virginia City, Nevada. From 1858 until about 1890, logging in the basin supplied large timbers to shore up the underground workings of the Comstock mines. The logging was so extensive that loggers cut down almost all of the native forest. In 1864, Tahoe City was founded as a resort community for Virginia City, the first recognition of the basin’s potential as a destination resort area.

Development Public appreciation of the Tahoe basin grew, and during the 1912, 1913, and 1918 congressional sessions, congressmen tried unsuccessfully to designate the basin as a national park. During the first half of the 20th century, development around the lake consisted of a few vacation homes. The post-World War II population and building boom, followed by construction of gambling casinos in the Nevada part of the basin during the mid-1950s, and completion of the interstate highway links for the 1960 Winter Olympics held at Squaw Valley, resulted in a dramatic increase in development within the basin. From 1960 to 1980, the permanent residential population increased from about 10,000 to greater than 50,000, and the summer population grew from about 10,000 to about 90,000. Since the 1980s, development has slowed due to controls on land use.

Lake Tahoe Facts
Sunshine: The sun shines at Lake Tahoe during 75% of the year, or 274 days.

Snowfall: At lake level, annual snowfall averages 125 inches. At alpine skiing elevations, the snowfall averages 300 to 500 inches each year.

Gaming: There are six 24-hour casinos in the South Lake Tahoe area. Together, they have a total of 7,051 slot machines and 411 game tables.

Skiing: Skiers can hit the slopes on one of the 182 ski trails in the midst of more than 8,800 total ski resort acres, and boasts Lake Tahoe's greatest vertical drop at 3,600 feet.

* Lake Tahoe is located 200 miles northeast of San Francisco, CA and 58 miles southwest of Reno, NV in the Sierra Mountain Range.

* Lake Tahoe is the North American Continent's largest Alpine lake and is 22 miles long, 12 miles wide, and covers a surface area of 191.6 square miles, and has 72 miles of shoreline.

* Lake Tahoe is 2/3 in California and 1/3 in the State of Nevada.

* The Lake's surface is 6,226.95 feet above sea level and the natural rim is 6,223 feet above sea level, making it the highest lake of its size in the United States.

* Mt. Tallac at 9,735 feet is the highest peak rising from the shoreline. The highest point in the Tahoe Basin is Freel Peak at 10,881 feet.

* Lake Tahoe is the third deepest lake in North America and the tenth deepest in the world. (Lake Baikal, in Russia, is the deepest at over 4,600 feet.) Tahoe's deepest point is 1,645 feet near Crystal Bay. The average depth of Lake Tahoe is 989 feet.

* The estimated 39.75 trillion gallons of water contained in the lake is 99.9 percent pure, with visibility to 75 feet below the surface.

* If Lake Tahoe was completely drained, it would cover a flat area the size of California to a depth of 14 inches, but would take over 700 years to refill.

* Lake Tahoe is, geologically, a "young lake" having been formed 10,000 to 11,000 years ago.

* Glaciers are responsible for carving out the broad U-shaped valleys that hold Emerald Bay, Fallen Leaf Lake, and Cascade Lake.

* Sixty-three streams flow into Lake Tahoe, but only one, the Truckee River, run past Reno and into Pyramid Lake.

* Lake Tahoe loses much of its water to evaporation. If the water that evaporates from the lake every 24 hours could be recovered, it would supply the daily requirements of a city the size of Los Angeles.

* Although the summer's heat can warm the upper 12 feet to a comfortable 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Lake Tahoe never freezes over in the winter; this is due to the constant 39 degrees Fahrenheit, maintained at depths below 700 feet, largely because of the constant movement and volume of water.

* The sun shines at Lake Tahoe approximately 274 days a year. Weather in the Sierras can be unpredictable -- snow, for example, has fallen in every month and averages 420 inches a year.