The Legend of Tahoe Joe

I first met the legendary Tahoe Joe in August of 1861. When the War Between the States closed the Mississippi and dry-docked me as a river pilot, I came west to try my fortune on the Comstock Lode.

Having been raised with the respect for hard work, I usually stepped out of its way on every occasion I could - especially if it took place in a tunnel one thousand feet underground.

But tunnels need timbers, and I needed to eat, so I moseyed up to Lake Tahoe to stake out a timber ranch. One day, a young lad in buckskins dropped by. He carried an old flintlock and said he was out hunting meat and herbs for his mother, a Washoe who cooked for a timber camp on the east shore. His father was a mountain man with an itchy foot who skedaddled when news of the silver strike came over the Carson range.

Being a helpful sort, Joe taught me how to catch and cook rabbits. In return, I taught him the delights of poker and sour mash whiskey. I found him to be great company - gregarious, quick to laugh, and wise beyond his years. We cut nicks in our thumbs and promised to be blood brothers forever.

Not long after, I managed to turn a campfire into a sizable forest fire and abandoned my career as timber baron to become a reporter for the Territorial Enterprise. I encountered Joe in Virginia City two years later. He was walloping pots as an apprentice cook in a hotel kitchen by day and dancing attendance to Lucky Lady at the ‘C’ Street poker tables by night. We renewed our friendship over one of Joe's special steaks, and it was plain even then that the lad was destined for success.

When the Central Pacific Railroad reached Reno in 1868, it's president came down to Virginia City to try one of Joe’s culinary extravaganza. Joe so impressed him that he hired him on the spot as chef on his private Pullman Car. Joe sometimes got to sit in on poker games with the railroad nabobs and eventually won enough to start his own restaurant at Lake Tahoe. Because of Joe’s reputation for fine Sierra Mountain cooking, and his willingness to share a joke, story, friendly drink or a hand of cards, the restaurant soon became the premier establishment on the lake - even after the Mother lode tailed out. Tahoe Joe’s was a stop on every notable’s peregrination of the West.