Paddle History of Lake Tahoe

 

     Here is the information on Hawley circumnavigating the lake.  It is from Nevada Hisorical Society Papers 1913-1916, Nevada Historical Society, Carson City: State Printing Office, 1917.    Asa H. Hawley was one of the first Americans to settle at the south shore of the lake in what was then called Lake Valley, later named Tahoe Valley.  In 1854 he opened a trading post and public house along the Johnson route after he, the future railroad magnate Collis Huntington, and James H. Nevett, later chairman of California’s Wagon Road Directors, improved the Johnson roadway.  Hawley’s dealings with the Washoe at Tahoe were quite different than Johnson’s.  The natives would not allow white men to fish in the lake.  Hawley, who said he considered all Indians deceitful, said, “They tried to drive me off but I never was afraid of Indians except their treachery.”   

     In either 1856 or ’57 Hawley, James Green, and John A. “Snowshoe” Thompson rowed a small boat that Hawley built around the lake, becoming the first Americans to navigate it.  They were trying to discover if the lake had an outlet, an open question at that time.  They discovered the Truckee, although they did not know its name.  At one point, with Green rowing close to the shore, Hawley paced a half-mile to see how fast they were traveling.  They were trying to determine how long it would take them to circumvent the lake.  Withal, they calculated Tahoe’s circumference to be 150 miles, more than twice its actual size.