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CA - Tahoe City,Placer County - October 24, 1873 - D.L. Bliss Letter Regarding Lick Observatory Site

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Western Americana Start Price:150.00 USD Estimated At:300.00 - 600.00 USD
CA - Tahoe City,Placer County - October 24, 1873 - D.L. Bliss Letter Regarding Lick Observatory Site
Session D is a Mail-Bid Only Auction. Absentee bids will be accepted only. No live bidding will be allowed. All winners will be contacted after the auction. BIDDING ENDS MONDAY JUNE 27 AT 5PM PACIFIC TIME!!!
A letter written to D.L. Bliss from A.W. Von Schmidt (Stateline surveyor), who worked for James Lick of observatory fame. The letter is written on Truckee Hotel letterhead (John F. Moody, Proprietor), where Von Schmidt stayed during his visit to Lake Tahoe. Von Schmidt reports that he has been sent to Tahoe by his employer “…to select a proper site for his Grand Observatory. I have examined several locations near Lake Tahoe, and have found one on a prominent point projecting into the Lake known as “lousey” (Lousy) point.” He goes on to inquire if Bliss would be interested in selling the land, and remarks that “…you will appreciate the great liberality of Mr. Lick in putting up one of the largest and finest Observatories in the world, for scientific purposes, at a cost of at least $300,000.” Lousy Point is actually Dollar Point, originally known as Chinquapin, on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe and it has an interesting history, as follows:

…in 1872 a bedraggled, land squatting cordwood cutter named Griffin helped himself to a patch of land on the promontory, where he built a shack. It was his custom to wander into Tahoe City and drink at J. B. Campbell’s over water Custom House, where he liked to sit by the stove and warm himself while picking crawling vermin off his person. This practice revolted the hard drinking mountain men of that time, who encouraged ‘Old Lousy’ to return to his shack and stay there. Other possible origins of the name are attributed to Robert Watson, who said the waters surrounding the point were ‘lousy with trout,’, and Captain J. A. Todman, who had difficulty navigating his boat around ‘the lousy point.’ A more flattering name was coined when James Lick, the San Francisco philanthropist, offered to give $1,000,000 for the construction of an observatory on the site. He liked the clear atmosphere and the relatively light snowfall during the winter. He was supported by Duane Bliss and Henry Yerington of Glenbrook, who owned a half section of land at Old Lousy and offered to donate 140 acres to Lick if his plan materialized….However, Nevada, as usual, had other ideas. The Virginia City Chronicle claimed that Mount Davidson, then known as “Sun Mountain” or “Peak” would be a better astronomical choice…. The observatory claim was tossed back and forth, with dark horse factions supporting locations at Donner Summit and Carson. In the end, the observatory was built on---“a miserable goat hill in the Pacific Range”, Mount Hamilton overlooking Santa Clara Valley. Residents of Tahoe, Truckee, Carson and Virginia City retreated to their corners and spoke no more about the project, but the name Observatory Point thankfully replaced ‘Old Lousy’[Ref: www.dollarpoint.org/history.htm].





The end of the story is that the Bliss interests took title to the point in 1898 with the formation of their Lake Tahoe Railway and Transportation Co. Bliss’s heirs sold the property to Mrs. Laura Moore Knight of St. Louis in 1916 and she built a cluster of chalets there that she called Wynchwood. She in turn sold the acreage in 1927 to Stanley Dollar, Sr., shipping magnate from San Francisco, from whom the point took its modern name, Dollar Point. An interesting note is that Laura Moore Knight bought other property at the south end of Lake Tahoe, complete with its own island, and built Vikingsholm Castle, at Emerald Bay in 1929.
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