An act to authorize the state of California to secure the title to and right of way for that certain wagon-road...commencing a short distance easterly from the village of Smith's Flat...and running thence to Lake Tahoe...", approved March 26, 1895, chapter 128, p. 119 Report of the Lake Tahoe Wagon Road Commissioner, November 29, 1898 The 58 miles road had been operated as a privately owned toll road from about 1855 till 1886, when El Dorado County bought it; the county deeded the road to the state on February 28, 1896.