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]