Then and now: Lake Christopher — from wet to dry
Lake Christopher was a man-made 55-acre reservoir at South Tahoe near the southwest corner of Black Bart Road and Pioneer Trail. I’m told that in the late 1950s the lake was 4- to 50feet deep, was fed by Cold Creek (that road sign exists today), and that it had lots of fish.
A decade later, its water level had dropped significantly while the lake became home to countless frogs.
On land owned originally by the Johnson family, its adjacent forest area was developed into today’s Meadow Lakes subdivision when that section of Pioneer Trail became a paved road in the 1960s. As the result of a stream and meadow restoration project, the lake was dry by the mid-1980s.
Lake Christopher existed approximately from 1955-1984, as best as I can determine, yet remains listed today on some guides and maps “for good fishing”.
The first four photos provided by Nancy Ticknor all look in the same direction toward Mt. Tallac.
Photo No. 1 shows her living room window lake view in 1977.
No. 2 shows wintertime ice skating on Lake Christopher.
No. 3 is the lake drying up due to stream and meadow restoration in 1984.
No. 4 shows today’s meadow at the same location.
No. 5 is a Google aerial view.
— Bill Kingman
Before The lake was made it was just a meadow with Cold Creek meandering through it and there were Aspen Trees and great fishing holes. It became a lake when the subdivision was built, not sure of the date that the Subdivision was built but I think it was the late 50s or mid 60s.
Nice pictures Nancy, wish that you had an original before they built the lake, it was Beautiful.
Thanks for the memories.
People often wonder why the little subdivision off of Pioneer Trail (across from Sierra House School) is called “Meadow Lake”. Lake Christopher was built as part of that development.
It is interesting that developers in the past thought they had to change nature when they built houses in an already beautiful and natural setting. Lake Christopher and Tahoe Keys are two cases in point and the original plans for Tahoe Paradise (now Meyers) were astonishingly invasive.
Thanks for the article and photos.
I think the lake was owned by Elwood Johnson. The city bought it( its not in the city limits) and removed the dam and restored the meadow.
We have lived here since 1970. The way I remember it, when the frogs took over, they drove everyone in the subdivision crazy with their noisy communicating all night long. One of the residents of the subdivision was a well-known Realtor in town, and he fought to have the lake drained. As far as I can remember, the lake was purposely drained to get rid of the frogs.
The ice-skating picture is great — it would be wonderful to have that outdoor skating area again!
That could have been me and my friend Verd there ice-skating. . .when we didn’t go to Squaw Valley, as that building was open on one-side, so was left open after the Olympics. . .
As was pointed out above, why a developer thought to improve upon nature (that was in fact my understanding at the time) should be “beyond thinking about”, but we humans always think that way. . .as I recall, the lake was “done in” as part of watershed restoration of Trout Creek, not to mention was not natural, so wasn’t really working that well, so it was absorbed back into a meadow setting. . . David Goldman of the Conservancy and I used to talk about that project.
I lived next to Lake Christopher in the mid-70s, when most of the land in the area was vacant. One of my chores was to chase cattle out of the neighborhood and back into the meadow at Trout Creek. On cold mornings, they would break through their fences and sleep on our warm driveway or against the house itself.
Lake Christopher was very warm in summer and full of leaches, mosquitos, and bluegill – and chocked with weeds and rotting algae by summer’s end. The underlying meadow wasn’t excavated when the dam was constructed and rotten plant material leached into the lake all year long. This murky (stinky) water flushed into Cold Creek before finding its way into Trout Creek and Lake Tahoe.
I recall at least one snowmobile that met its fate in that lake, and I lost a few footballs and anchors for my old raft. The “new” meadow is a great improvement over that old man-made swamp.
Believe it or not, every Spring there are still frogs. The willows are multiplying every year. Getting thicker and thicker. It is a perfect place for the numerous coyotes we have to hide, and the bear population has increased a lot.
Remember the drought years that brought on the redirection of the fresh water into Lake Christopher,to cold creek, to get the water to the big lake.
It is what it is today. I accept that, but the willows should be thinned and transplanted to other areas being refurbished. It will no longer be a meadow, just willow and pine trees, and that will happen much sooner than you think.