Then and now: Alpine County still sparsely populated

Historic Woodfords Hotel Photo/California State Library

Woodfords General Store Photo/Bill Kingman

Lake Tahoe’s immediate neighbor to the south, Alpine County, officially marks its 150th anniversary on March 16.

Although it’s the smallest California county in terms of population with only 1,200 residents (two per square mile), Alpine is not the smallest county in terms of size. That fact belongs to San Francisco.

Alpine County is bordered by five other California counties and Nevada. Its county seat is Markleeville, population 210, on Highway 89 almost seven miles south of the Woodfords junction of highways 88 and 89.

1972 Bank of American promo brochure. Courtesy of Rita Lovell and Lisa Gabon/Alpine County Library

BofA building is now the Chamber of Commerce. Photo/Bill Kingman

What was a new Bank of America branch at the north end of Markleeville in 1972 now houses the Alpine County Chamber of Commerce .

Original schoolhouse in Markleeville. Photo/California State Library

Alpine County Library Photo/Bill Kingman

The original Markleeville schoolhouse today is the Alpine County Library and Archives.

At the east end of Hope Valley on highways 88/89 is the historic Sorensen’s Resort, revived and operated by John Brissenden since the early 1980s.

Sorensen’s in the 1950s. Photo/Arthur W. Ewart, They Came Every Summer, 1993, with permission.

Sorensen’s in fall 2013. Photo/Bill Kingman

In the 1980s, a group called the Friends of Hope Valley formed to keep a powerline project out of the area. They lobbied successfully for government acquisition of land and today there are no big power transmission towers crossing Hope Valley.

To online to find out all the planned activities for the 150th celebration.

— Bill Kingman