Then and now: Developing the Tahoe Keys
John Spinola of South Lake Tahoe provided this mid-1960s aerial photo of Tahoe Keys (left), and Google Earth is the source of the current view (right).
I’ve inserted 3 white “X” marks in the bottom-left of each photo to provide a common reference point; the water gap at Christie Drive. Diagonal at the very bottom-left is the main artery street Venice Drive which the developers originally had named Sierra Boulevard. Obviously, that had to change.
The developers also succeeded in having First Street renamed as Tahoe Keys Boulevard, although today that name changes again to Ala Wai Boulevard.
The third and concluding Tahoe Keys developer was the Dillingham Corporation which had offices located on the Ala Wai Canal, an artificial waterway in Honolulu.
— Bill Kingman
The number one disaster in So. Lake Tahoe. All in the name of making money!!
Having only lived here a year, I have thoroughly appreciated Bill Kingman’s history lessons provided by Lake Tahoe News. His photos, background and insight are intriguing and I look forward to each posting. Thank you Mr. Kingman for giving me these mornings of yesteryear.
This was the beginning of the end for Lake Tahoe clarity.
Tahoe Keys was the straw that broke Mother Natures Back and wella, TRPA was born. Every time I see the Keys It reminds me how TRPA was to late to fix the Keys fiasco and how TRPA has twisted into a Gestapo organization.
“has twisted into a Gestapo organization.”
If you want to let the world know that you are an ignorant political idealouge, use that kind of analogy.
well good or bad analogies aside, how does Remember When think a TRPA could have prevented the Keys development without being regarded as the “gestapo” in the 1950s-1960?
Horse tails
You did not mention the developer and his friendly politicans in the city and county.
I always believed the big bang that polluted the Lake was Golf Courses and landscaping.
they do it right now, but originally pouring all the fertilizer and stuff? onto grass and landscape really did allot of damage. I watched it happen.
Tahoe Keys was an environmental disaster right from the start. Before anyone starts giving me **** about renting a dock in the Keys for my boat, it’s stayin’ on the trailer this summer. for a multitude of reasons. I’ll be on the water in my old reliable canoe (much less expensive to float and a bit of exercise to boot!).
Before the Keys development began, the Truckee Marsh was a beautiful place with lots of wildlife, flora, fauna, clear clean water mountain run off, plus it acted as a natural filter of sediments flowing into the lake. All gone now, no way of bringing back that eco-system.
Please don’t ridicule the residents of the Keys. They are not responsible for what took place all those many years ago. Just a shame it was ever dredged and destroyed in the first place. OLS
Before the Tahoe Keys, that wetland was the largest in The Sierra.
Fun fact of the day.
As for blaming the people who live there… they are kind of like people who wear mink coats. They didn’t kill the animals, they aren’t active in the trade. But they wear it. And they should know that they own a little piece of an environmental disaster.
And the TKPOA were aware of invasive weeds, and were told that the mowing was helping it spread. And did nothing. Now other people have to spend time and money to deal with it.
Thing Fish,
I threw that remark in there about not ridiculing the Keys residents as a way to try and stop the hatered that seems to ebb and flow around here against others. Just doin’ what I thought was best.
Thing fish, get your soil ready for planting a garden after this next little storm passes. As Frank Zappa famousely sang in(67′ or 68′?) “Call any vegetable, and the chances are good that a vegetable may respond to you”. Just had to get that out there. Thanks, OLS
Wow. It was not my desire by submitting this bit of history that vitriol could result.
The Keys project started 53+ years ago — did you know the term *ecology* in 1959? County seat Placerville had minimal concern about this tiny summer-populated eastern end of El Dorado County.
I’m told that a competing developer wanted to make the same Keys acreage into a black-topped airport (and perhaps with the same ecological impact as the Keys).
There was no “local” control: The City of South Lake Tahoe was incorporated in November 1965; the TRPA became official in 1969.
As OLS stated above, “Please don’t ridicule the residents of the Keys. They are not responsible for what took place all those many years ago.”
I have never been in The Keys.
So I looked at Google Earth and kinda scrolled around.
How big are the places there? Looks like a nice place to live or have a second home. Back in the 70’s it must have been something. Air Port near by, boat on water in summer. Golf nearby, Maybe boat to the golf. Skiing pretty close.
How big are these places? looks like allot of smaller places not the huge Mc’Masions around most of the Lake.
How do they handle Sewer? that looks kinda sketchy.
Anyway yea developed a wetland, That happened allot around the lake back in the day.
but other than that. The place does not look like a Getto, and seems to give amny many people access to the Lake.
while digging to install pier blocks for a deck in the keys, we mostly found old tires and landfill trash.
OLS: A prune really isn’t a vegetable. Cabbage is a vegetable.
1966.
“The best clue to this song might lie in the fact that people who are inactive in a society… people who do not live up to their responsibilities… are vegetables.
I feel that these people… even if they are inactive, apathetic or unconcerned at this point… can be motivated toward a more useful sort of existence. I believe that if you call any vegatable it will respond to you.”
Note: Frank was dead before I was driving a car. If you were behind me in a lift line ever, you saw him staring at you from the back of my helmet. Or behind me in traffic, but that is harder to see.
To all the people above who responded with contempt for the Keys and the people who live here, you need to turn your negative energy into something positive that will actually help the environment if that is your call. Or is it you just like to rag on everything? As was mentioned above, the Keys happened over 50 years ago before any regulations existed. We all know it would never happen today. Get over it.