It was brought about through the work of William Henry Knight, still living in Los Angeles, who has kindly furnished the following account: In the year 1859 I was the youngest member of an overland company which crossed the plains and mountains from St.Joseph, Mo., to California.

Our train was in three divisions and consisted of about twenty persons, and forty horses and mules.
One morning in the middle of August we left our camp at the eastern base of the double summit of the Sierra Nevadas and began our ascent.

Mounted on my faithful steed, Old Pete, I pushed on in advance of the caravan, in order to get the first view of the already famous mountain lake, then known as Lake Bigler.

The road wound through the defile and around the southern border of the Lake on the margin of which we camped for two days.
As I approached the summit I turned from the main road and followed a trail to the right which led to the top of a bare rock overlooking the valley beyond and furnishing an unobstructed view.
Thus my first view of that beautiful sheet of water was from a projecting cliff 1000 feet above its surface, and it embraced not only the entire outline of the Lake with its charming bays and rocky headlands but also the magnificent forests of giant pines and firs in which it was embosomed, and the dozen or more lofty mountain peaks thrusting their white summits into the sky at altitudes varying from 8000 to 11,000 feet above sea level.
The view was, indeed, the most wonderful combination of towering mountains, widespreading valley, gleaming lakes, umbrageous forests, rugged buttresses of granite, flashing streams, tumbling waterfalls, and overarching sky of deepest cerulean hue--all blended into one perfect mosaic of the beautiful, the picturesque, and the majestic, that mortal eye ever rested upon.
No imagination can conceive the beauty, sublimity and inspiration of that scene, especially to one who had for weary months been traversing dusty, treeless and barren plains.

The contrast was overwhelming.