Then and now: Tahoe City didn’t always have a dam

This hand-tinted photo postcard (courtesy of Theresa and Darrell Eymann) was postmarked Sept. 9, 1908, as “TAHOE, CAL” and mailed to Richmond, Calif. It depicts the source of the Truckee River at Tahoe City.

1908 was five years before the Tahoe City Dam was built to control the top 6 feet of Lake Tahoe’s surface elevation and the flow into the Truckee River.

For comparison, 105 years later, the second photo was taken in April 2013 standing on the dam.

The third photo, also one I took, shows the 100-year-old dam between Fanny Bridge on the Truckee River and the lake outlet.

— Bill Kingman