While on the Chase Estate Tour, Bob, Jenny, Steve, and I stopped for a history lesson at the cemetery in Glenbrook, Nevada.
This gated community is steeped in history and we used this opportunity, once inside, to visit this scenic resting place for the who's who of early Tahoe.Meet Capt. Augustus W. Pray (1820-1892) who arrived here in the spring of 1860. Captain Pray and his associates gave the location its name, Glenbrook, due to a stream that ran through the meadow. They built a log cabin, harvested the wild hay, and planted grain and vegetables. It was a very successful endeavor.The following summer (1861) Pray erected a sawmill. Seeing potential in the nearby timber, Pray bought out his partners in 1862 and began buying up timber land to supply his mill, quickly assembling holdings of 700 acres around Glenbrook.
Thanks to the expansion of Comstock mining, lumber became increasingly necessary — and valuable. In 1873, Pray sold his mill and the land that it stood on to entrepreneur Duane L. Bliss (1833-1907). Bliss launched a massive lumbering operation throughout Tahoe Basin, assembling mills, railroads, and flumes into a complex network carrying timber over Spooner Summit to serve the mines. By the end of the 1890s some 750 million board-feet of Tahoe Basin lumber had been shipped eastward to support mining operations on the Comstock — leaving 47,000 acres stripped of their timber. Bliss then turned to tourism. His gravestone reads, "A pioneer of the West in 1850. Identified with Lake Tahoe since 1871."I couldn't find information on Ann Elizabeth, daughter of Frank O'Brien, though her brief life ended here in 1885.Frank S. Jellerson (1839-1897) had to be part of the hotelier family who in 1882 built the Jellerson Hotel. I guess business was so good that in 1890, the family constructed the Dirego Hotel near their existing Jellerson Hotel. Wow. What I could find about Jackson Moffett (1914-1978) came from the obituary of his son, Frank Short Moffett (1953-2006). Frank's true love was everything about Lake Tahoe. He spent much of his time at his family's home in Glenbrook which was built in 1864. He was extremely proud of his family's long standing history with Tahoe. The Moffett family had to be important pioneers if they've had a home here since 1864. And what a unique grave marker.Cemeteries answer so many questions and help to pose new ones, as well. I loved this particular history lesson, in a breathtaking setting, with equally inquisitive friends.
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