A popular stop on a scenic drive around Lake Tahoe is Logan Shoals Vista Point near historic Glenbrook on Nevada’s beautiful East Shore. This overlook is easily accessible by a short stroll off Highway 50 where locals, tourists and wedding photographers appreciate the stunning views. The shoals below were formed by sediment loading from nearby Logan Creek, but the history behind the family name ascribed to this location is not well known.
Robert and Mary Logan, along with investor-manager Wellington Stewart, opened the two-story Logan House on a bluff overlooking the lake in the summer of 1864
Interpretive plaques at Logan Shoals Vista Point rightly inform visitors about the Washoe Indians who summered at Lake Tahoe for thousands of years. Over millennia, the tribe had respected the bounty of the land and water and treated it as such, with minimal environmental impact on the region. Starting in 1860, however, the Tahoe Sierra was ravaged in less than 50 years, exploited by gold seekers, timber barons, commercial fishing enterprises and resort entrepreneurs who also privatized much of the property in the second half of the 19th Century. Even so, by the early 1900s Lake Tahoe had become an increasingly popular summer destination. But who was the person the shoals were named after?
This story is about Tom Logan, a respected frontier Nevada lawman, but it was his parents, Carson Valley ranchers Robert and Mary Logan, who established the Logan House hotel at Lake Tahoe. In July 1863, the couple took a chance and purchased a choice 640-acre parcel at the alpine lake from local miner George E. Pierson. The land had impressive views, timber stands and lake frontage. The $1,500 they paid for it was considered expensive at the time. To help build and run the hotel at the lake, the Logans entered into a partnership with Carson Valley Justice of the Peace Wellington Stewart.
At the time, the Lake Tahoe Basin was being decimated by commercial logging companies who provided finished lumber and bulk cordwood to the mining operations on the Comstock Lode. Fallen timber was dragged down the mountain slope by sweaty teams of grunting oxen and cattle, while armies of lumbermen swarmed through the rapidly diminishing forest. With noisy sawmills belching smoke 24 hours a day, and spirited lumberjacks getting drunk at night, the lake was not considered a family-friendly destination.
But with the new Bigler Toll Road (Highway 50) passing by his hostelry, Robert Logan was confident he’d make the money back in no time. Robert and Mary, along with investor-manager Wellington Stewart, opened the two-story Logan House on a bluff overlooking the lake in the summer of 1864. It was a time of optimism in the territory as the silver and gold mines were thriving and freight and stage traffic were increasing. Mining is a boom and bust enterprise, but in the early 1860s money was flowing. During the summer of 1864, Nevada prepared a new constitution for statehood and on Oct. 31 Nevada entered the Union as the 36th state. Despite its lack of population, confirmation for statehood was expeditiously granted by President Abraham Lincoln — just in time for Nevadans to enthusiastically support the Republican’s re-election.
Logan House was among the first commercial teamster and tourist hostelries built at Lake Tahoe. Teamsters, miners and anyone else bound for Virginia City and the Comstock mines traveled this busy trans-Sierra route from Placerville through South Lake Tahoe. There was a fancier way station nearby in the Glenbrook meadow, so the Logan’s charged their customers a reduced rate of $15 per week, $6 less than the Glenbrook operation. They weren’t shooting for the upper-crust traveler; rather their intended patrons were on the lower economic rung — mostly wagon drivers and travelers on foot. They advertised fine dining, fishing and sailing and dazzling views from nearby Cave Rock, the Washoe Indians’ spiritual center at Lake Tahoe.
Business was brisk at Logan House that first summer, but trouble cropped up when the Douglass County tax assessor appeared demanding delinquent tariffs. To delay foreclosure, Stewart assumed another mortgage and they began selling off sections of their holdings. The tax burden was still too much for the fledgling enterprise to handle, and in 1866 Logan House and its remaining assets were sold to Henry M. Yerington. Yerington was a timber baron and future superintendent of Virginia & Truckee Railroad. The land was logged, and Logan House left to decay. By the 1880s, the dilapidated building was known as the ghost hotel where local children went to play.
Thomas W. Logan was born in Franktown, Nevada Territory, on May 29, 1861, three years before the Logan House fiasco. Franktown was an early hamlet in Washoe Valley, southwest of present-day Reno. Tom was the first of what would become a family of seven children, six of which were boys.
Once the hostelry went bust in 1866, Robert and Mary tried their luck in the Silver State, chasing dreams in fleeting boomtowns such as Pioche, Belmont and Austin. By 1871 the growing Logan family was living in the Moapa Valley, about 60 miles northeast of the future site of Las Vegas. They led a simple frontier existence; everyone was tucked into a one-room adobe house with a dirt floor.
Typical for rural communities in western U.S. states and territories at the time, the children were homeschooled by their parents. A blackboard was nailed to a nearby cottonwood tree where lessons were taught in the shade of its canopy. Mary even found time to become postmistress of what became known as Logandale. Robert spent several years as a well-respected justice of the peace in the town; he stood against injustice. It was a trait he engrained into his children.
Hard-working Mary was pioneer tough. She accomplished a great deal in her lifetime, but for much of it she suffered from frail health. She died in 1882 at age 38, six months after giving birth to her seventh child. Soon after her passing, widowed husband Robert hired attractive 23-year-old Hannah Hamblin to cook, clean and help raise the kids. At this point, life became interesting for 21-year-old Tom.
Stay tuned for Part II in the next edition and at TheTahoeWeekly.com.
