Duane L. Bliss

June 10, 1833 - December 23, 1907

Duane L. Bliss was the lumber and mining magnate who founded the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company in Gold Hill, 1871. In less than a decade, Bliss eventually controlled every facet of the business from the land to the timber, to the ships and the barges, a finely-tuned system that moved timber from the Lake Tahoe Basin to the mines at Virginia City via an extensive flume and railroad system. Bliss is best known for entrepreneurialism and his fine ownership of more than one hundred employees, of whom he paid more than $4 per day. He then initiated a form of medical insurance for his employees and charged them fifty cents per month for complete medical care.

After the end of the logging era in 1893, Bliss anticipated the high tourism potential of Lake Tahoe. He moved his logging trains from Glenbrook to Tahoe City on the northwest shore of the lake and converted them to passenger service, establishing the Lake Tahoe Transportation Company that was later connected to the Southern Pacific's international rail service at Truckee, California. In 1907, he completed the renowned Glenbrook Inn which became a tourist destination for the elite families of San Francisco.

Today, Duane L. Bliss is buried in Glenbrook, 22 miles from his elaborate mansion he constructed for he and his wife in Carson City. He also owned valuable mountain land on the west shore some of which was later donated to the State of California and named D.L. Bliss State Park in his honor.