Lake Tahoe is one of the nation's most beautiful settings, drawing an endless stream of visitors each year to its casinos and ski resorts. Along with its success as a resort community, Lake Tahoe retains much of its pioneering charm. The area's principle attraction remains its vast wilderness setting and the lake, which rests like a sapphire in the crown of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

European explorers first entered the basin in 1844 and named the town for their pronunciation of the Washoe Indian name Da-ow-a-ga, or "lake of the sky." The discovery of silver in the 1860s turned the remote outpost into a boom town, and 100 years later, the 1960 Winter Olympics in the Squaw Valley brought a permanent boom to the region, transforming it into a 8,000-plus acre ski mecca.