April Meeting Preview!

Happy April everyone!

The Rocklin Historical Society is proud to announce a wonderful public event.  Join us Monday April 18th, 7pm at Old St. Mary's Chapel in Rocklin for an historic presentation about one of Placer County's greatest jewels: Lake Tahoe.

Professor Scott Lankford will be giving a presentation about the history of Lake Tahoe based on the research in his book Tahoe Beneath the Surface: The Hidden Stories of America's Largest Mountain Lake.  As always, we invite the entire public to attend and enjoy.  Light refreshments will be served after the presentation.

About the Speaker:

Scott Lankford was raised in Colorado and got lost en-route to Stanford University and spent much of the next ten years as a maintenance man, musician and mountaineering guide at Lake Tahoe. After joining the 1985 American Everest West Ridge Expedition, he completed a Ph.D. in modern thought and literature with a dissertation on John Muir. His doctoral dissertation is entitled John Muir and the Nature of the West: An Ecology of American Life, 1864-1914. Currently a Professor of English at Foothill College in California’s Silicon Valley, he has served as Foothill’s Dean of Language Arts and Co-director of the Foothill College Cultural Diversity Center.

About the Presentation:

Lake Tahoe transformed America, and not just once but many times over--from the earliest Ice Age civilization to the mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe. It even played a hidden role in the American conquest of California, the launch of the Republican Party, and the birth of John Steinbeck’s first novel. Along the way, Lake Tahoe found the time to invent the ski industry, spark the sexual revolution, and win countless Academy Awards.

Tahoe Beneath the Surface brings this hidden history of America’s largest mountain lake to life through the stories of its most celebrated residents and visitors over the last ten thousand years. It mixes local Washoe Indian legends with tales of murderous Mafia dons, and Rat Pack tunes with Steinbeck novels.  It establishes Tahoe as one of America’s literary hot spots by tracing the steps of more than a dozen authors including Bertrand Russell, Maxine Hong Kingston and Michael Ondaatje. Tahoe Beneath the Surface reveals how the lake transformed the lives of conservationists like John Muir, humorists like Mark Twain, and Hollywood icons like Frank Sinatra. It even touches upon some of the darker aspects of American history, including anti-Chinese racism and the Kennedy assassination.

Despite the impact Lake Tahoe has had on America, environmental threats loom large, and Tahoe Blue--a term that Lankford uses to encompass the whole range of life, beauty, and meaning the lake represents--grows increasingly vulnerable.  In Tahoe Beneath the Surface , human history and natural history combine in a most engaging way, one that will both inform and inspire all who would keep Tahoe blue.

(Summary provided by Jean Sippola)


Sincerely,
Danielle Loebs
External Publicity Coordinator
Rocklin Historical Society