The Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company (C&TL&F) was formed to move lumber from trees growing along the shore of

Lake Tahoe Lake Tahoe (; was, Dáʔaw, meaning "the lake") is a Fresh water, freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada of the United States. Lying at , it straddles the state line between California and Nevada, west of Carson City, Nevad ...

to the

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

mines of the

Comstock Lode The Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Virginia City, Nevada (then western Utah Territory), which was the first major discovery of silver ore in the United ...

. Between 1872 and 1898 C&TL&F transferred 750 million

board foot The board foot or board-foot is a unit of measurement for the volume of lumber in the United States and Canada. It equals the volume of a length of a board, one foot wide and thick. Board foot can be abbreviated as FBM (for "foot, board measure" ...

of lumber logged from of virgin timberland.

Origins

Augustus Pray moved to

Glenbrook, Nevada Glenbrook is a census-designated place (CDP) on the east shore of Lake Tahoe in Douglas County, Nevada, United States. The population was 215 at the 2010 census. Beach and Bay are for residents and renters living in Glenbrook's gated community. ...

on the shore of Lake Tahoe in 1860. In 1863 he had two steam engines delivered. He used the first to build a

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

at Glenbrook; and the second was used to power the

paddle wheel A paddle wheel is a form of waterwheel or impeller in which a number of paddles are set around the periphery of the wheel. It has several uses, of which some are: * Very low-lift water pumping, such as flooding paddy fields at no more than about ...

tugboat A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, su ...

''Governor Blasdel'' built with some of the lumber he milled from nearby forests. The tugboat was then used to tow rafts of logs to his sawmill from more distant shores of Lake Tahoe. Lumber was in great demand on the opposite side of the ridge separating Lake Tahoe from the silver mines to the east. Aside from the need for homes to shelter the miners and associated commercial enterprises, the silver ore deposit required large quantities of lumber for a newly designed

square set timbering In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adj ...

structure to prevent collapse of weak rock overlying the ore body. The ''Truckee'' and

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

-driven ''Emerald'' began towing log rafts to Glenbrook in 1870. Duane Leroy Bliss formed C&TL&F in 1872 to build a

narrow-gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard-gauge railway, standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum r ...

up the hill from the sawmill at Glenbrook to

Spooner Summit Spooner Summit is a mountain pass through the Carson Range, linking the Lake Tahoe Area to Carson City via US 50. The highest point of the pass is located just east of Spooner Lake just before the first set of curves when traveling eastboun ...

, and to purchase the Marlette Lake Water System with a wooden

flume A flume is a human-made channel for water, in the form of an open declined gravity chute whose walls are raised above the surrounding terrain, in contrast to a trench or ditch. Flumes are not to be confused with aqueducts, which are built to tr ...

to float the lumber from the summit dropping to the

Virginia and Truckee Railroad The Virginia and Truckee Railroad is a privately owned heritage railroad, headquartered in Virginia City, Nevada. Its private and publicly owned route is long. When first constructed in the 19th century, it was a commercial freight railroad ...

Carson City, Nevada Carson City is an independent city and the capital of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 58,639, making it the sixth largest city in Nevada. The majority of the city's population lives in Eagle Valley, on the ...

Lake Tahoe Railroad

The V-shaped flume built by the Summit Fluming Company in 1869 was purchased first, and lumber moved uphill in wagons until the Lake Tahoe Railroad was built in 1875 to carry production from two more sawmills C&TL&F built at Glenbrook in 1873 and 1875. The route climbed following North Canyon Creek and required two switchbacks to reach the summit at an average grade of 2.44 percent with some as steep as 4 percent.

Baldwin Locomotive Works The Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railroad locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, it moved to nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania, in the early 20th century. The company was for decades t ...

built two

2-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. ...

locomotives named ''Tahoe'' and ''Glenbrook''. Either locomotive could pull six

flatcar A flatcar (US) (also flat car, or flatbed) is a piece of rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck mounted on a pair of trucks (US) or bogies (UK), one at each end containing four or six wheels. Occasionally, flat cars designed to carry ...

s of lumber to the summit, and trains sometimes used twelve cars with one locomotive pulling and the other pushing. By 1877 the railroad had 75 flatcars; and a third similar locomotive was built that year to move the desired volume of lumber when one of the locomotives required repairs. Railroad and flume operations were coordinated by installation of one of the first

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

systems in the west between Glenbrook and Carson City. As additional log raft towing capacity was required, C&TL&F purchased the ''Meteor'' in 1876 the ''Emerald (II)'' in 1887. C&TL&F's second Glendale sawmill burned in 1887; so their remaining Rigby sawmill shifted to 24-hour operation to sustain lumber production.

Lake Valley Railroad

In 1886 C&TL&F purchased George Chubbuck's Lake Valley Railroad south from

Bijou, California Bijou (formerly, Taylors Landing and Taylor's Landing) is a former unincorporated community now incorporated in South Lake Tahoe in El Dorado County, California. It lies at an elevation of 6243 feet (1903 m). The place was founded in 1864 by Alm ...

up to

Meyers, California Meyers (also Yanks, Yank's Station, and Tahoe Paradise) is a small unincorporated community in El Dorado County, California, United States, along U.S. Route 50 in the northern Sierra Nevada. It is south of South Lake Tahoe in the Lake Taho ...

. The railroad brought logs down to Lake Tahoe, where C&TL&F steamboats would tow them to the Glendale sawmills. The Lake Valley Railroad initially used square timbers as wooden rails for a primitive locomotive fabricated by

Vulcan Iron Works Vulcan Iron Works was the name of several iron foundries in both England and the United States during the Industrial Revolution and, in one case, lasting until the mid-20th century. Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and smithery, was a popular na ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. The locomotive was used as a stationary

steam donkey A steam donkey or donkey engine is a steam engine, steam-powered winch once widely used in logging, mining, Shipping industry, maritime, and other industrial applications. Steam powered donkeys were commonly found on large metal-hulled multi-m ...

after it destroyed the wooden rails; so Chubbuck laid conventional 35-pound rails and purchased the narrow-gauge

0-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. This was the most common wheel arrangemen ...

used for construction of the Nevada-California-Oregon Railway. C&TL&F sent one of their Lake Tahoe Railroad locomotives over to assist the

Porter Porter may refer to: Companies * Porter Airlines, Canadian regional airline based in Toronto * Porter Chemical Company, a defunct U.S. toy manufacturer of chemistry sets * Porter Motor Company, defunct U.S. car manufacturer * H.K. Porter, Inc., ...

locomotive built in 1875 after they purchased the line. Both locomotives were sold to the

Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad The Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad (NCNGRR) (nickname: ''Never Come, Never Go'') was located in Northern California's Nevada County and Placer County, where it connected with the Central Pacific Railroad. The Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railr ...

when the Lake Valley Railroad was dismantled in 1898.

Lake Tahoe Railway and Transportation Company

Demand for lumber declined as Comstock Lode ore depletion became evident. Bliss shifted his attention to building a

steamboat A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the ship prefix, prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S ...

landing at

Tahoe City, California Tahoe City (formerly Tahoe) is an unincorporated town in Placer County, California. Tahoe City is located on the shore of Lake Tahoe, at the outlet of the Truckee River. The site was surveyed in 1863, and Tahoe House was built in 1864. The Tahoe ...

for his Tahoe Tavern

resort A resort (North American English) is a self-contained commercial establishment that tries to provide most of a vacationer's wants, such as food, drink, swimming, lodging, sports, entertainment, and shopping, on the premises. The term ''resort ...

. Bliss formed the Lake Tahoe Railway and Transportation Company in 1895 to launch the 200-passenger ''Tahoe'' in 1896 and acquire the rebuilt passenger steamer ''Nevada''. When transfer of lumber over the C&TL&F flume ended in 1898, the Lake Tahoe Railroad was dismantled and shipped across Lake Tahoe to be reassembled in 1899 as a tourist railroad connecting Tahoe City to the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

Truckee, California Truckee is an incorporated town in Nevada County, California, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 16,180, reflecting an increase of 2,316 from the 13,864 counted in the 2000 Census and having the 316th highe ...

References

External links

*{{HAER , survey=NV-16 , id=nv0162 , title=Slaughterhouse Canyon Railroad Grade, South of State Highway 28 on east shore of Lake Tahoe, Carson City, NV , photos=4 , data=7 , cap=2 Transportation in Douglas County, Nevada Defunct Nevada railroads Historic American Engineering Record in Nevada History of Douglas County, Nevada Railway companies established in 1872 Railway companies disestablished in 1898 1872 establishments in Nevada 3 ft gauge railways in the United States Railways with Zig Zags Defunct manufacturing companies based in Nevada