Then and now: Camp Rich’s pier, boats change
Boats at Camp Richardson looked a little different in 1946 than they do today. Photo/Pomona Public Library Frasher Fotos Collection
The 1946 black-and-white photo, above, shows the early Camp Richardson pier as viewed from the center of the Camp Rich beachfront.
My 1959 color slide, left, shows the pier viewed from the other side, at the west edge of Camp Rich bordering the Valhalla site. Camp Richardson then still was operated by family member Sis Richardson Knisley, years before selling to the U.S. Forest Service in about 1970.
The rental shack seen at the right had kayaks, paddleboards, and something very new. Personal watercraft as we know them today were yet to come, but my 1959 photo, below, shows their infancy. 
That is me at the Camp Rich pier rentals receiving instruction on how to straddle over a gasoline can on two plastic pontoons strapped together with a 25-horsepower outboard motor. Standing and gripping the cross-bar, I’d lean left or right to steer this craft. Do you think anything like this could be allowed today? I made several treks from Camp Rich to Emerald Bay circling Fannette Island and back, and I’m still here.
All the above is gone now, evidenced by this photo, left, which I took this month from the same vantage point as 1959.
— Bill Kingman
Bill, your historical recollections continue to amaze and delight me. I love the photos of ‘then and now’. Thank you for sharing your Tahoe history with us.
Just an FYI – “Al Tahoe Forest Homes” HOA purchased Camp Richardson and a portion of Desolation Valley and then conducted a land swap with the Federal Government. The Feds got Camp Rich and the home owners of “Al Tahoe Forest Homes” received our tract land. That was in 1965.
Great added info. Thank you, Dana.
Bill, I have some old home movies of Camp Richardson and the Gold Cup races held I believe in 1952. Also of the Resort at Emerald Bay in the early 50’s . Recently put them all on a CD. My mother ran a sight seeing tour every summer out of EB. She also teamed up with Wes Stetson who used to fly his sea plane up here. If you ever want to see these old 75mm movies, now on CD let me know!
Thank you Bill, and the rest of you contributors. I am the newcomer — started playing in Tahoe in the early 60’s. I love Tahoe, Fallen Leaf Lake, Tahoe Tallac/Valhalla, Taylor Creek and the Bear Buffet, Echo Lakes (a real time warp) & water taxi, Angora Lakes, Desolation Wilderness, everything on Hwy 88 & 89…. I love it when you share the memories I missed… I’m only 68.
Hi Judy,
My name is Christine Shook, and I work at the Tahoe Maritime Museum. Those CDs sound fantastic! If possible, I would love to get a look at them. I’d really appreciate it if you would call or email me so we can talk. You can reach me at 530-525-9253 (104) or by email at christine@tahoemaritime.org.
And Bill thanks for the great article. I would love to talk with you about these and any other photos you have, too–I especially love the personal watercraft!
I hope to hear from you both!
Bill – I particularly like what passed for a life preserver in those years. Piece of soft foam wrapped around the waist.
Bill, thank you for doing this piece so soon after I requested pretty much this exact thing. Interesting, though, that you don’t refer to Edward’s Boat Service, which operated at the pier at Camp Rich for years. We moored our boat there every summer from when I was a babe in arms (1959) until about 1980. (Dad passed in ’81 and we weren’t able to keep the boat. I still miss it — and him, of course!)
I never paid attention to the “personal watercraft” rentals, but I definitely remember wearing what we called “ski belts” for water ski-ing and sometimes for just playing in the water. They were remarkably buoyant, but definitely would not have kept an unconscious person’s face out of the water.
I know we have slides and family movies taken of the piers and the beach and the hoist, and maybe the ramp. I also remember the wet years when water slopped over the piers and, more often, the dry years when we had to climb way down to the boat from the pier. There was a floating extension to the pier that was much easier to manage.
I remember one year when a terrible storm hit and capsized several boats that were moored at Edward’s. I seem to remember that one was a marvelous “Woody” and it about made me cry to see it like that. I was there when they pulled one of the capsized boats up with the hoist and all the cushions and oars and skis and other stuff whooshed out of it. What a mess!
I remember the series of metal huts that served as winter storage and was also where they worked on boats. To a little kid, walking all the way through that thing seemed like a big adventure, and it was always cool to see the boats in various stages of repair and/or restoration. I even remember how it smelled, inside and out.
Many years, we spent July 4 evenings watching the fireworks at Stateline from our boat. We’d be all bundled up and we could hear people in the other boats all around us oohing and ahing at the display. We all had lights, of course, and it would get so dark that the lights were all we could see of the other boats. It always amazed me how Dad could safely get us back to the Marina through the dark night.
A beacon was left on, which helped enormously, of course, but the staff were off for the night, so those who paid for mooring had to borrow the taxi (small outboard) by tying it to the backs of their boats, mooring their boats at their buoys, then driving the taxi back to the end of the gas pier where it was kept. Sometimes Dad would taxi several other boaters back from their boats while he was at it.
Our boat was an inboard, and it still impresses me to recall how easily Dad moved between inboard and outboard. He tried to teach me to drive the taxi once, but I couldn’t get the hang of steering the “wrong way”. (I’ve never been good at backing a trailer, either, for the same reason.)
So many memories! Playing on the small beach next to the marina, buying treats in the cinderblock snack shack, thinking the teens who ran the taxi had the coolest life imaginable….
Know Bears — thank you for your terrific contribution! I’ll pursue info on Edwards Boat Service. Do I recall correctly that it was at the other end (now the Beacon Restaurant edge — i.e., 1950s cinderblock snackbar) of Camp Rich?