AT RENO MODERN BUILDINGS AND THE FINE BRIDGE THAT SPANS THE TRUCKEE MARK THE UPBUILDING OF NEVADA’S PRINCIPAL CITY
Reno is at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, the great wall rising to the westward and separating California from the rest of the country. This highest of mountain chains in our country extends several hundred miles north and south. Perhaps no other range of mountains in the world has attractions so great or of such variety. The Sierra Nevada, the Snowy Range, or, as John Muir has more aptly termed it, the Range of Light, has many main ridges extending from 6,000 to 12,000 feet above sea level, with guardian peaks over 14,000 feet high. Highest of all and greatest mountain peak in the United States outside of Alaska is Mt. Whitney, 14,529 feet high. These mountains which the Overland Route crosses on its way to the Pacific have the greatest coniferous forests on earth. Among its peaks nestle the largest and most numerous of mountain lakes. Between its walls are unsurpassed mountain chasms. Its streams, unexcelled in beauty, possess the greatest potential power of all the waters of American mountains.
The Sierra Nevada is crossed by the Overland Route along a scenic pathway associated with much of interest in history and tradition. Here were the greatest obstacles in the way of the pioneer railroad builders. Nature seemed here to have rallied her forces for a final stand. Here Theodore Judah, the pioneer pathfinder of the railway, found his most difficult work. The climb up the mountain side is up the canyon of the beautiful Truckee River, a famous trout stream, a journey lined with beautiful forests of pine and mountain walls.
A STREET IN CARSON CITY, NEVADA, WHERE FAMOUS FOOTPRINTS AND FOSSIL REMAINS OF PREHISTORIC MONSTERS HAVE BEEN FOUND
At Boca, Prosser Creek and Iceland, the “chief crop” is ice; at Floriston, paper; at Truckee, lumber and box stock; and at Lake Tahoe, a very good time. Boca is junction with the Boca & Loyalton road, a forty mile line northward through Sierra and Plumas Valleys—noted for its forests, beautiful little valleys, and lakes. Truckee is a lumbering and railroad town of two thousand people, Thence, a distance of 14 miles farther up the river, runs the Lake Tahoe Railway to the shore of Lake Tahoe.
VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA, AS IN THE DAYS OF THE COMSTOCK LODE. STILL FURNISHES RICH YIELDS OF PRECIOUS MINERALS
Lake Tahoe, largest of the world’s mountain lakes, is 23 miles long by 13 miles broad, 6,220 feet above sea-level, and over 2,000 feet deep. It is a body of the purest, clearest, and most wonderfully tinted water imaginable, held in a mountain rimmed cup with its edge crested with ever present snow, sparkling as a jewel. Between snow line and the lake are beautiful pine forests, in which, half hidden, are such famous resorts as Tahoe Tavern, McKinney’s, Tallac, Glenbrook, Brockway, and Tahoe City. The summer climate with great abundance of sunshiny days, the invigorating pine-scented atmosphere, and the cool nights and delightful days, alone make of Tahoe and its neighboring Sierra lakes—Fallen Leaf, Cascade, and others—an unsurpassed summer place. But when are added the forests, the scenery of the Snowy Range, the fishing and hunting, and the out of door sports, the first place among mountain lake resorts must be given to this region. A swift and well fitted steamer circles the lake every summer day from Tahoe Tavern.
The trout of Tahoe, the Truckee river, and neighboring lakes and streams, make good the claim that no place excels this region for the fisherman. Usually they run from three to six pounds in weight, but specimens weighing over thirty pounds have been taken.