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Lake Tahoe’s White Gold
By Mark McLaughlin
Out of all the
skiers who have carved the slopes around Lake Tahoe, the most
famous is undoubtedly John “Snowshoe” Thompson, the legendary
skiing mailman of the Sierra Nevada. When it came to traveling
in the wintry mountains, he was the precursor of the pack train,
the stagecoach and the locomotive. It required years before any
other form of transportation succeeded him.
 Born
Jon Tostensen in the Telemark district of Norway on April 30,
1827, "John" was 10 years old when his father died and the
family immigrated to the American Midwest in 1837. In 1851, the
24-year-old was bit by gold fever and he ran off to California.
He worked as a miner in the Sierra foothills and then later
moved to Putah Creek, near Placerville, about 30 miles east of
Sacramento. Tostensen took up farming in summer and cutting
commercial firewood in the winter. About this time he
Americanized his name to John Albert Thompson after the family
name of his stepfather Arthur Thompson.
After the Gold
Rush, the increasing demand for communication between California
and the eastern United States resulted in the establishment of
an overland mail route between San Francisco and Salt Lake City.
The lucrative, but dangerous mail contract was worth $14,000 a
year when George Chorpenning and Absolom Woodward took on the
job in 1851. It took the men 16 days to pack the mail by mule
910 miles to the Great Salt Lake. It was exhausting work and
became deadly when Indians killed Woodward in November 1851.
Newspapers
published accounts of the dangerous difficulties and failed
attempts to carry the mail over the mountains during the winter,
but it seemed there was nothing anyone could do. In 1855,
Thompson saw an ad published in the Sacramento Union:
People Lost to the World: Uncle Sam Needs Carrier. The
Placerville postmaster needed someone to carry the overland mail
90 miles east, up and over the Sierra range to the Carson
Valley, in the dead of winter. There weren't any takers until
Thompson, whose father had made him “snow-shoes” to ski to
school as a child in Norway, decided to answer the call to duty.
Thompson
remembered that as a young boy in Norway he and his friends had
used skis to travel quickly over the snow-covered landscape and
his Viking spirit was aroused to the challenge. He stood six
feet tall and weighed a solid 180 pounds. With his blonde hair
and beard, fair skin and piercing blue eyes, he looked every bit
the fierce Norseman of his ancestry.
On his first
attempt to ski from Placerville to the Carson Valley via the
Markleeville route south of Lake Tahoe, his rucksack was packed
with letters and packages. The hefty load weighed between 60 and
80 pounds. Initially Thompson’s friends and neighbors feared
that he would never survive the trek, but the skiing mailman
conquered the hazardous journey east in just three days. The
return trip up and over the Sierra’s eastern escarpment took
only 48 hours.
Thompson’s
pack eventually exceeded 100 pounds when newspapers, medicine,
and ore samples were stuffed into it. At least twice a month for
20 years, Snowshoe Thompson hauled his heavy rucksack through
the mountains. Fair skies or storm, rain or snow, Snowshoe
Thompson always delivered.
 Snowshoe
Thompson died on May 15, 1876, at age 49, from appendicitis and
is buried in the historic Genoa cemetery. Three months before
his death, Territorial Enterprise journalist Dan De
Quille interviewed the popular Norwegian. De Quille asked
Thompson whether he had ever lost his way in the mountains.
“No,” Snowshoe quietly replied, “I was never lost. There is no
danger of getting lost in a narrow range of mountains like the
Sierra, if a man has his wits about him.”
Snowshoe
Thompson was the first skier at Lake Tahoe, but he certainly
wasn’t the last. Today, the Tahoe region enjoys an enviable
reputation among America’s premier winter resorts for its
sublime beauty, frequent sunshine and abundant snow. This
well-deserved reputation got its start around 1928, when the
223-room Tahoe Tavern, a European-style luxury hotel near Tahoe
City, began to stay open during the winter months.
Transportation to the lake was provided by Southern Pacific
Railroad’s “Snowball Specials,” which brought in tourists from
the main line in Truckee. Initially, the main attractions were
ice skating and tobogganing near today’s Tahoe City Golf Course,
but soon winter activities move to a more protected location
(current location of Granlibakken resort) just west of town. A
double toboggan slide was built, and then shortly after a large
ski jump was installed, designed by none other than Lars Haugen,
a seven-time national ski jumping champion.
 The
ski jumping contests and toboggan runs were very popular and the
area soon became known as “Olympic Hill.” During the winter of
1928, residents in Tahoe City formed a winter sports club. The
club’s members were so confident of their perfect location and
climate that they petitioned to host the 1932 Winter Olympics.
Although the ’32 Winter Games were awarded to Lake Placid, New
York, Lake Tahoe scored a victory by being chosen to host the
prestigious National Ski Tournament at Olympic Hill, the first
one ever held west of the Rockies. Despite problems with
financing and housing (a generous donation of several thousand
dollars by Mrs. Laura Knight, owner of Vikingsholm at Emerald
Bay, saved the tournament), the beautiful scenery, mild weather,
and incredibly deep snow impressed the competitors, journalists
and spectators that attended the national publicized contest.
By the time
the ski competitors arrived in February 1932, nearly 300 inches
of snow had buried Tahoe City in drifts 25 feet high. The
winning combination of heavy snowfall and heavenly mountains
convince a skeptical media that California really did offer
world-class skiing and scenery. A March 3, 1932, article
published in the Auburn Journal described the excitement:
“The 28th National Ski Tournament goes down as one of
the best exhibitions of good sportsmanship, one of the most
thrilling meets, one of the most spectacular events ever held in
the United States under the auspices of the National Ski
Association.”
-Sports-promot.gif) At
the tournament, one young Reno competitor, Wayne Poulsen, placed
third in the ski jumping event. His excellent performance
launched Poulsen, the future owner and founder of Squaw Valley,
into a lifetime involvement in skiing. As a direct result of the
1932 national Ski Tournament at Lake Tahoe, the popularity and
economics of winter sports throughout the Sierra boomed.
Mark McLaughlin
is an award-winning, nationally published author and
photographer with four books and more than 350 articles in
print. His work appears regularly in California and Nevada
media; he was awarded the Nevada State Press award five times.
Educated in History and Cultural Geography at the University of
Nevada – Reno, Mark teaches Sierra Nevada pioneer history
firsthand, using entertaining stories, unique slide shows and
informative field trips. He is a frequent guest on regional
television and PBS programs, and has consulted for The History
Channel.
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