Then and now: Echo Summit always a key link
Echo Summit has always been a main connector to South Lake Tahoe. It used to be accessed via Johnson Pass Road, which connected to what is now called the Old Meyers Grade.
An aerial view of Highway 50 in the Echo Summit area. The white X marks where the next three photos were taken nearly 100 years ago on Johnson Pass Road, Photo/Google Earth
Old Echo Summit Road in 1918. Photo/Lake Tahoe Historical Society
Early days of the summit. Photo/Lake Tahoe Historical Society
In the 1930s and 1940s, the construction of Highway 50 over Echo Summit as we know it today was under way.
A 1919 Cadillac makes it over the summit. Photo/Lake Tahoe Historical Society
The Highway 50 Association advertised it as “All-Year High-Gear Highway 50” in 1949 as seen here
in the Stanford Daily.
Four-wheel drive was not an options in the 1930s. Photo/Lake Tahoe Historical Society
With today’s technology, a simple mouse click produces a live webcam view of Highway 50 traffic over Echo Summit. Photo/Caltrans
— Bill Kingman
I love the old photos of Lake Tahoe! I wonder if the Historical Society sells copies. I can’t imagine driving over Echo Summit into the basin without the rock wall separating the road from the cliff…… which gives me that mental safety net! from falling. Folks who pull over and step over the divider for additional views & photos are nuts!
…..and, if you look closely, Bill Kingman is the driver in that 1919 Cadillac!…..
Bill Kingman, Very good about Echo Summit! My Dad started vacationing here in the 1930’s and tells me tales of coming here before it was paved. Sometimes in his Model A or riding an old Indian motorcycle he would borrow from his friend Oly. Coming to Tahoe to have a good time and go to the casinos and have a drink with Harvey Gross.
Harvey and Echo Summit Had some history as he and some compatriots would go to the out in Meyers with snow shovels and a jug of whiskey. Shovel they did as they wanted the road cleared to bring people into So. Shore.They would throw the jug up ahead the into the snow so the people clearing the section of road could’nt get a drink till they cleaend that part of road to get to the jug. I guess it was kinda like dangeling the carrot infront of the horses nose as it were.
Echo Summit is a beautiful drive, American river off to the side, tall peaks and small places to stop for a soda and a bite to eat along the way.
I’m glad Echo Summit is here. If not, WE may not be here! Happy motoring, Old Long Skiis
Love these posts, Bill. You ever thought about giving a talk at the library or something? I know myself and many others would love to attend – I can’t get enough of this sweet Tahoe history!
So many people talk about their very first vision of Lake Tahoe from the Summit. . .but, as to ‘Critical I’s’ idea, I want to know some of the ‘urban legends’ (the ones that are truer than fiction: Cadillacs going over the side towards Christmas Valley, etc., etc.)
When we lived around Whitehall (my dad was project manager for the dams above Riverton): Every once in a while we’d experience a car-load of “partiers’ coming ’round-the-bend’ (on Highway 50) at breakneck speed, seemingly on two-wheels, so close you could hear tires screeching in the canyons. . .& wondered what happened to them when they “got to the top”. . .
Now, that would be an evening !!. . .