Janice Oberding - Haunted Lake Tahoe

Published by Haunted America

A Division of The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2015 by Janice Oberding

All rights reserved

First published 2015

e-book edition 2015

ISBN 978.1.62585.477.3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015943857

print edition ISBN 978.1.62619.946.0

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

FOREWORD

Her name is Janice; she is a good girl.so well I remember this, her first story written while she was still a very small girl. The cadence of those words echoed in my ears while I tried to catnap before another grueling afternoon shift. Even then, I knew this girl was destined to become a writer, which indeed she has.

Im proud of her as a daughter and especially proud of her writing. I know thorough research goes into everything she writes. From a very early age, Janice has explored every corner of Nevada. The Lake Tahoe area is one of her favorites. She loves Nevada and is well versed in its history.

I know that you will enjoy Janices rendering of Tahoe and the area ghosts as they weave their way through one story after another. It seems they want to linger still, in various places, as several people have attested.

Bonnie Harper

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It takes a village to create a book. There are so many people I wish to acknowledge and thank for their help in this book (and other books as well). First, I thank my husband, Bill, for his willing participation in research, photography and whatever else I have needed along the way. Thanks goes to my mother (Mama), Bonnie Harper, for her encouragement and guidance and for writing the foreword to this book, and thanks to my sister Diane Grulke, a writer herself, whose suggestions are deeply appreciated. Thank you to my friend Cimarron Sam for his interesting experiences and stories. Thanks to Richard St. Clair for spending a beautiful spring day driving our friend Terri Hall-Peltier and me around the lake. Thanks to Richard Senate for sharing his notes on Truckee with me. Thanks to my friend Mona Hoppe for sharing her Truckee experiences and stories. Thanks to Terri Hall-Peltier for her friendship and help in all my book adventures and to Deborah Carr-Senger for her wit and friendship. Thank you to the many ghost investigators who have shared my enthusiasm for hunting ghosts over the years. Finally, there would be no book without a publishers go ahead; I want to thank Artie Crisp and the people at The History Press for saying yes to my ideas and for bringing them to fruition.

INTRODUCTION

Im often asked how I can believe that ghosts exist. This is usually followed by a look that says you seem like a rational and reasonably intelligent person. Before anyone can answer a question about ghosts, there first has to be some agreement about what a ghost is. Ive long believed thatand for the purpose of this bookghosts are the essence (spirit) of someone who has died. It is not my intention to offer up proof of ghosts and hauntings; this would require someone with infinite patience and a deeper understanding of scientific matters than I myself possess. I have written this book with two purposes in mind: to tell the stories of ghosts that I and others have encountered at Lake Tahoe and to share some of the legends and myths that are an integral part of Lake Tahoes history. Fans of the old television series Bonanza have seen Lake Tahoe in the opening scene of the show many times; that scene was filmed near Incline Village at North Lake Tahoe. Of course, the Cartwrights and their famous Ponderosa Ranch were fictional, but the breathtaking scenery is realand it is haunted.

Ghosts are everywhere. But some places lend themselves to hauntings more than others. Lake Tahoe is such a place. The two-million-year-old lake does not entirely belong to California or Nevada. Instead, it straddles the borders of both states, thus giving California and Nevada equal, if at times contentious, regulatory rights over its shoreline. Since the near-pristine lake is an interstate waterway, Lake Tahoe is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States Coast Guard.

Lake Tahoe is 22 miles long; it is two-thirds in California and one-third in Nevada. It is the tenth-deepest lake in the world and the second-deepest lake in the United States, with a deepest point of 1,645 feet and a surface area of 193 square miles. There is enough water in the lake to cover the entire state of California to a depth of 14 inches. With thirty-nine trillion gallons, the lake contains enough water to provide everyone in the United States with seventy-five gallons of water per day for five years. The lake has its different areas, particularly North Shore and South Shore. If you plan to see the entire lake and its shorelineand you mustkeep in mind that the driving distance around the lake, from one end to the other, is about seventy-two miles. As you cover those miles, you will see the lakes color change from azure to turquoise and its surroundings change from tall pines, mountains and rustic, log-hewn buildings to high-rise hotels and casinos. Also in those miles, you will pass, albeit in the secluded distance, Tahoes nude beaches; there are said to be seven of them, with Secret Cove and Secret Creek being the most popular. But this is a book about ghosts, so Ill just say that clothing is optional for the living and the ghosts at these locations.

Looking at the lake as an early morning mist shrouds its shoreline, it seems almost enchanted, and you can sense its haunted magic. Ghosts are more popular than ever, but ghostly legends and folklore have surrounded Lake Tahoe since long before Captain John C. Frmont discovered it on February 14, 1844. Of his first look at the lake, Frmont wrote in his journal:

Accompanied by Mr. Preuss, I ascended today the highest peak to the right from which we had a beautiful view of a mountain lake at our feet, about fifteen miles in length, and so nearly surrounded by mountains that we could not discover an outlet.

Naturalist and environmentalist John Muir visited Lake Tahoe for the first time in October and November 1873. He called the lake the queen of lakes. In his 1915 Letters to a Friend, a collection of letters he wrote to his friend Jeanne Carr, the following was written about Lake Tahoe on November 3, 1873:

Somehow I had no hopes of meeting you here. I could not hear you or see you, yet you shared all of my highest pleasures, as I sauntered through the piney woods, pausing countless times to absorb the blue glimpses of the lake, all so heavenly clean, so terrestrial yet so openly spiritual.the soul of Indian summer is brooding this blue water, and it enters ones being as nothing else does. Tahoe is surely not one but many. As I curve around its heads and bays and look far out on its level sky fairly tinted and fading in pensive air, I am reminded of all the mountain lakes I ever knew, as if this were a kind of water heaven to which they all had come.