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Three Early SS Tahoe Photographs (125158)

Currency:USD Category:Art / General - Prints/Reproductions Start Price:75.00 USD Estimated At:150.00 - 250.00 USD
Three Early SS Tahoe Photographs  (125158)
SOLD
75.00USD+ (18.75) buyer's premium + applicable fees & taxes.
This item SOLD at 2020 Nov 05 @ 15:35UTC-7 : PDT/MST
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Enlargements of original photos of the SS Tahoe-- two are 3' x 2', and one is 3' x 3'. The SS Tahoe was a steamship that operated on Lake Tahoe at the end of the 19th century and first half of the 20th. Scuttled in 1940, the wreck presently lies in 400 feet (120 m) of water off Glenbrook, Nevada.

D.L. Bliss commissioned San Francisco’s Union Iron Works to construct the SS Tahoe in 1894. The parts were forged and shipped piecemeal via train to Carson City, where a horse-drawn wagon drug them up for assembly on Glenbrook’s shore. The steamship launched in June 1896. It disembarked from Tahoe City, carrying up to 200 passengers, cargo and the daily mail while rotating in a counterclockwise direction to deliver its freight. Bedecked with brass and marble fixtures, electricity, steam heat, hot showers and an ample dining room, the vessel was the picture of luxury and style and a symbol of D.L. Bliss’ material success. In 1930, after nearly three decades of supremacy, the SS Tahoe received the greatest blow to its relevancy as the highway around Lake Tahoe was completed, meaning cargo, people and mail could be transported more efficiently. The SS Tahoe lost the U.S. Mail contract in 1934, and William Bliss, struggling to prolong his father’s business glory, sold the ship, which sat defunct just off Tahoe City’s shores.
Vandals defaced and even used the once-proud boat occasionally as a rough commode. Embarrassed by the degradation of his family heirloom, William Bliss bought back the boat for a song and began his most ill-fated project. He decided he would scuttle the grand ship in 100 feet of water, just off Glenbrook, where the boat was born, and glass-bottom boats would be able to observe the grandeur of yesteryear. The SS Tahoe would serve as a sort of underwater museum, the thought went. On August 29, 1940, William Bliss stood with a throng of bystanders gathered to watch the family’s beloved vessel sink to The Lake’s floor. The only problem—a major one—was the engineers in charge of the project, including William Bliss, miscalculated the slope of The Lake floor off Glenbrook’s shore, and the boat sunk and then slid out of sight, taking with it any plans for an underwater museum. (from the Tahoe Quarterly, by Matthew Renda, 2015)