El Dorado County, California along with the population since the 1960 Winter Olympics, hosted at Squaw Valley Ski Resort in neighboring Placer County. The present-day site of El Dorado County was once home to the Maidu, Washoe, and Miwok Native American tribes, and is notable for being the site of the 1848 gold discovery that sparked the California Gold Rush. The County of El Dorado was one of California's original 27 counties created effective February 18, 1850 (the number has risen to 58 today). Its name is derived from the Spanish meaning "the gilded/golden". The final segments of the Pony Express mail route ran
El Dorado Lake two pre-existing smaller reservoirs: Bluestem Lake and the original El Dorado Lake. The original El Dorado Lake was built on Satchel Creek in 1927 as a water supply for the community of El Dorado. Bluestem Lake was built on Bemis Creek in the 1950s. The dams of both reservoirs were breached during the building of the larger El Dorado Lake and their waters subsequently inundated. The remnants of Bluestem Lake's dam are still visible in the Shady Creek arm of the present-day reservoir. El Dorado Lake is located at (37.8472402, -96.8230838) at an elevation of . It lies in the