Then and now: From ranches to suburbia
In October 2014, Then & Now highlighted Jack Van Sickle’s Crescent V Ranch near Stateline. Since then, I’ve come across remarkable photos of how fast areas like that can change.
An aerial view of South Lake Tahoe in 1940. Photo/U.S. Geological Survey
As early as 1940, the T-bone meeting of today’s Park Avenue at Highway 50 existed (just below center in the photo), as did the Pioneer Trail off-shoot seen to the right. The large blank area above Highway 50 was Jack Van Sickle’s Crescent V Ranch.
Development in South Lake Tahoe in the 1950s started changing the look of the area. Photo/Lake Tahoe Historical Society
Ten years later, that junction shows the historic Cecil’s Market facing what is now Tahoe Tom’s gas station, the round-roof quonset hut Lakeside Theatre to the right, as well as the original Tahoe Drive-In Theatre seen in snow on Van Sickle’s spread. Its entrance driveway became more of Park Avenue in the Crescent V Shopping Center.
The Park Avenue area of South Lake Tahoe in 2015. Photo/Google Earth
Today, Park Avenue above Highway 50 is renamed Heavenly Village Way and the Crescent V Center named after Jack Van Sickle’s ranch in 1962 now is named the Village Center.
Near Covina in 1940. Photo/Ed Crook collection
Near Covina in 1959. Photo/Ed Crook collection
For comparison, see how quickly development occurred in Southern California within only 19 years — 1940-1959 — near Covina.
— Bill Kingman
No mention of the illegal taking of Van Sickle’s Crescent V Shopping center via eminent domain, to give to another private owner for improvements and more revenue to the city? A fine ‘thank you’ after Van Sickle had already given so much land for a park.
Pretty clear that the shopping center was built on top of a meadow. In normal snow years there’s always water percolating up through the asphalt right behind Raleys. Ownership claimed it was a broken pipe year after year! Thanks to the Van Sickle family for the donated land.
Bill Kingman,Excellent photos! A freind of mine, Mike Ryan, and myself would walk up up behind Raleys on the hillside looking to catch blue belly lizards. Good times!
I remember the quonset hut theater and the old Cecils Market.Thanks for the history lesson. OLS
The Quonset Hut was, of course, the 1st indoor theater (and with the correct placement of the original drive-in theater (not the one accessed on Herbert to Glenwood), but it needs yo be noted that Judge Rudy (& Jeannie) Buchanan also took the movie reels down Park Avenue to the marina and took them by boat to their other theater in Meeks Bay – by boat, given access across the Lake.. .
Also, what is known as Mo’s (Knight’s Inn, Motel 8. Ramada Inn [in the ’60’s, when standards were in place]) is actually another watershed (like that redone at Wildwood & behind McDonald’s) but the original motel site was created form land-fill from the direction of Lake Tahoe Blvd/North Upper Truckee Road by contractors building houses out there.
Tahoe Beach & Ski was a meadow that one could see across while having lunch at the coffee shop in the Ramada Inn. . .