Lake Tahoe, the iconic high Sierra water body that straddles California and Nevada, has sat for more than 10,000 years at the heart of the Washoe tribe’s territory. In fact, the name Tahoe came from the tribal word dá’aw, meaning lake.

The lake’s English name was the source of debate for about 100 years after it was first “discovered” in 1844 by people of European descent when Gen. John C. Fremont’s expedition made its way into the region. Not long after, a man who carried mail on snowshoes from Placerville to Nevada City named it Lake Bigler in honor of John Bigler, who served as California’s third governor. But because Bigler was an ardent secessionist, the federal Interior Department during the Civil War introduced the name Tahoe in 1862. Meanwhile, California kept it as Lake Bigler and didn’t officially recognize the name as Lake Tahoe until 1945.