Then and now: Staying along Emerald Bay

Emerald Bay Resort, circa 1950s

Emerald Bay today offers a Boat Camp on its north shoreline which is accessed publicly only by boat, or on foot via the Rubicon Trail. A pier and several mooring buoys are visible in this current color photo, plus there are campsites on land. Part of an “official vehicles only” access road is visible diagonally at right, which today is gated where it meets Highway 89. There is no public entrance.

Today’s boat-in campground.

Dave Wakeman, who has lived at South Tahoe since 1947, remembers this earlier Emerald Bay Camp & Resort of the 1950s and a smaller neighboring resort (possibly the Lakeview Lodge) which also existed on the north side of Emerald Bay. (Black and white photo.) The “official vehicles only” road mentioned above was the main public access driveway to these resorts.

The state of California purchased Emerald Bay (below Highway 89) from Lora Knight in 1952 while allowing the resorts to continue operating on lease until 1959. Wakeman recalls a pier and a restaurant where his family had dined lakeside at the resort, and he says that today’s state-operated boat camp campsites are where Emerald Bay Resort used to rent housekeeping cabins. Wakeman notes that a large log and other shoreline remnants of the past remain around the pier today.

I recall viewing a seaplane docked at Emerald Bay in the 1950s.

The Lake Tahoe Historical Society Museum (Highway 50 facing Sno-Flake Drive In) has a huge collection of historical photos, including Emerald Bay Resort. The museum is free.

Photo credits: Old photo is from Pomona Public Library Collection of Frashers Fotos; today’s color photo from me, and the sign from Lake Tahoe News.

— Bill Kingman