Letter: South Tahoe on path to being ghost town

To the community,

Recently I reread Wallace Stegner’s “Where the Bluebird Sings to Lemonade Springs.” It’s about living and writing in the West.

Also, I read Irving Stone’s “Men to Match my Mountains.” It’s a big book about the winning of the far West.

Bill Crawford

Both books are in part about the periods of boom and bust in the far West, the gold and silver strikes. And when the strikes petered out, many towns died and were ghost towns. The books are about more than that. But the theme of boom and bust fits South Lake Tahoe.

I thought of the casinos across the state line. For me they are comparable to gold and silver strikes in the their boom times. Over time millions came here to gamble, strike it rich at the dice and card tables. But now the casinos are in major decline. The boom is dead. The bust is here. On the California side of the state line the casino bust is deeply felt. So are we becoming a far West ghost town? When I look around, it seems we are going down that rocky road.

Bill Crawford, South Lake Tahoe