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35 The fact that in the nineteenth century Americans ignored Lake Tahoe’s grandeur as they destroyed its mature ecosystem emphasizes the changing values that led to similar results seventy-five years later. In the twentieth century, boosters promoting its reestablished beauty brought Tahoe worldwide acclaim. But the sheer numbers of those visiting, and the infrastructure needed to accommodate them, again led to ecodisasters at the lake. In the first half of the twentieth century, while the forests were reestablishing themselves, resorts enhanced their properties. Meadows were turned into golf courses, and pleasure piers were built for the convenience of boaters. The Tahoe Tavern, in one of the remaining old-growth forests, brought trainloads of white sand from Monterey Bay to create a beach.1 Tahoe promoters publicized the lake’s attractions: campgrounds, tent cabins , or lodges with full amenities and nightly entertainment. The area offered fishing, hiking, boating, horseback riding, and golf, as well as winter sports. In the 1920s, when skiing became popular in the western United States, Truckee and Tahoe’s North Shore were at the center of the action. In 1926 the Southern Pacific Railroad began running the Snowball Special, bringing skiers from California’s Bay Area to the lake. At Truckee the pullback, the only ski tow in America, ran alongside a ski jump. Near Tahoe Tavern, at North Shore, seven-time national champion Lars Haugen designed a sixty-meter ski jump, and national meets were held there throughout the 1930s.2 In that era, Nevada, needing to expand its economic foundation, had liberalized its laws. Gambling, declared illegal in 1910, was again legalized in 1931. In 1927 Nevada had reduced its residency requirement to obtain a divorce to three months. In 1931, after two other states followed suit, Nevada reduced its requirement to six weeks. Tahoe was a serene place to wait for vows to be annulled.3 Because California did not outlaw gambling until 1911, a year after Nevada, gambling had a history as part of early-day resort entertainment at the lake. In f o u r n the boom 36 s a v i n g l a k e t a h o e the closing days of the nineteenth century, at the South Shore, mining magnate and land developer Lucky Baldwin built a three-and-a-half-story lakefront casino. Advertised as “the marvel of the century,” the gambling palace featured five hundred electric lights, a stage for theatricals, a ladies billiard room, a bowling alley, and ten thousand dollars’ worth of French plate mirrors. Once gambling was declared illegal, it slowed but did not end the activity at the lake. In the 1930s and 1940s, it was reported that North Tahoe’s Old Buckhorn Inn offered gambling “if the county climate was suitable,” and the Tahoe Tavern had slot machines that could be hidden away when the county sheriff called to say he would be making a raid.4 In 1937, with gambling again legalized on the Nevada side of the lake, the Cal Neva Casino at Crystal Bay was such a moneymaker that when it burned down, the owner, developer Norman Biltz, approved blueprints while the ruins still smoldered. With construction going on around the clock, the sizable establishment was rebuilt, and Biltz was welcoming guests thirty-one days after its destruction. At South Shore’s Stateline, Nevada, several small board-and-batten or log buildings housed casinos. The Stateline Country Club, originally developed by Cal Custer, a Southern California rumrunner, offered big-name entertainment and a restaurant where for $2.50 you could dine on filet mignon or Louisiana frog legs. More typical were casino coffee shops serving breakfast all day and where, for a silver dollar, you could get an inch-thick tenderloin with all the trimmings. In 1944 Harvey and Llewellyn Gross, the former owners of a Sacramento meat-retailing business, opened a modest South Shore casino, Harvey’s Club. Their building contained three slot machines, two blackjack tables, and a sixstool lunch counter where Mrs. Gross offered meals prepared at her home. Into the 1950s, the most successful of the neon-lit “gameries” was the former Custer operation, purchased by the Sahati brothers and renamed Sahati’s State Line Country Club. It featured high-stakes gambling and Sally Wickman’s “bosomy” chorus line.5 After World War II, wave after wave of people moved west: in 1950 Nevada’s population was a mere 160,000; by 1980 it would be more than 800...

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