History in Tahoe: Watson Cabin

History in Tahoe: Watson Cabin

During the mid- and late-19th Century, Lake Tahoe’s proximity to three Sierra passes did little to introduce the comforts of “civilization” to that high country stronghold. Winters were notoriously severe, and the Lake’s lonely few permanent inhabitants were those with the skills, will and wisdom to succeed. Though not among the Tahoe region’s earliest settlers, Robert Montgomery Watson, born in rural Pennsylvania in 1854, possessed these same p…