![]() ![]() Development pressures escalated again in the 1940s and 1950s, and a group of residents and visitors who were concerned about the environmental health of the region formed the League to Save Lake Tahoe in 1957. During the 1912, 1913, and 1918 congressional sessions, conservationists made efforts to designate the Tahoe Basin as a national park but they were unsuccessful. Since then, public appreciation of Lake Tahoe and its natural resources has grown. It is estimated that over 80 percent of the Basin’s forests were clear cut during this time. ![]() The Comstock era resulted in large-scale deforestation of the Tahoe Basin, as timber was required to build mine shafts and support growing developments. Fishing at Leaf Lake is a popular pastime year-round, and the Kokanee Salmon Festival attracts many visitors in early October. Visitors can cross the lake over the dam over a pedestrian bridge and get from the east bank to the west bank. Photograph is of the Fallen Leaf SNOTEL site. The average depth of this lake is 72 meters and the maximum depth is 126 meters. During the 1860s Tahoe became the center of a lively commerce involving the silver mines in Virginia City and the Central Pacific Railroad (which was pushing over the Sierra toward the town of Truckee). Fallen Leaf (473) - Site Information and Reports Site notes: Data is provisional and subject to revision. In 1859 however, the Comstock Lode was discovered in Virginia City, Nevada. Fremont’s exploration party “discovered” the lake in 1844.įor many years following Tahoe’s discovery the area was virtually ignored. Native Americans camped, hunted, and fished at Lake Tahoe in relative seclusion until General John C. Artifacts confirm the presence of the Washoe Tribe of Native Americans at Lake Tahoe over 10,000 years ago. The material left after the glaciers melted, called moraines, blocked the original outlet of Lake Tahoe, changing it to the present Truckee River outlet at Tahoe City.įor many thousands of years, Lake Tahoe was occupied only by Native American tribes. These glaciers scoured the landscape, carving broad, U-shaped valleys now occupied by Cascade Lake, Fallen Leaf Lake, and Emerald Bay. Water from rivers and streams flowed into the Basin, gradually filling it several hundred feet above its present level.ĭuring the last Ice Age, less than a million years ago, huge ice blocks or glaciers formed in the surrounding mountains. Pluto on the north shore formed a barrier or dam across the basin’s outlet. Water filled this Basin where Lake Tahoe lies today. The valley that later became the Tahoe Basin sank between two parallel faults as the mountains on either side rose. The Lake was formed through faulting of the Earth’s crust, volcanism and glaciation.Ībout 25 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada block was formed by tremendous uplifting. ![]()
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