Travelling overland with an ox train, Bigler reached Sacramento in 1849, only to quickly discover that there were no open positions in law.

Bigler began to work at a series of odd jobs, including becoming an auctioneer, a wood chopper, and a freight unloader at the town's docks along the Sacramento River.

[2] Upon hearing of the territory's first general election in the same year, Bigler decided to turn to politics, and entered the California State Assembly as a Democrat, one of nine members representing the Sacramento district.

Upon being elected to the first session of the California State Legislature in 1849, Bigler enjoyed a rapid rise to power in the Assembly.

[6] Over the course of his two terms in office, taxes for Chinese immigrants steadily increased, with ever harsher bills passing the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Bigler.

One law passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor created a US$50 tax per head (to be paid within three days) for Chinese entering Californian ports.

[2] As Sierra Nevada gold mine output slowed to a trickle by the early 1850s, followed by local financial panic caused by the discovery of gold in Australia, anger towards hard-working and labor-cheap Chinese grew, especially among economically pressured miners, who desperately sought alternative work in California's cities and ports.

During Bigler's tenure, the state government struggled to find a permanent location for a capital or a capitol building.

For one miserable week in early 1852, the California State Legislature met in the township, quickly discovering the lack of facilities, supplies and furniture.

However, after flooding problems in Sacramento, and dire weather conditions in Vallejo, the Legislature and Bigler agreed to relocate the capital to nearby Benicia.

[11] Bigler urged adoption of measures to secure for San Francisco the benefits of the whale trade of the Pacific.

The anti-immigrant and Nativist American Know-Nothing Party, led by its nominee, former Whig J. Neely Johnson, defeated Bigler by a moderate margin during the 1855 election.

John C. Fremont, one of the lake's first White discoverers in 1844, named it "Lake Bonpland" after Aimé Jacques Alexandre Bonpland, a French botanist who had accompanied Prussian explorer Alexander von Humboldt in his exploration of Mexico, Colombia and the Amazon River.

By 1861, at the start of the American Civil War, former Governor Bigler, once a Free Soil Democrat, had become an ardent Confederate sympathizer.

The Sacramento Union jokingly suggested the name "Largo Bergler" for Bigler's widely perceived financial incompetency in his final term and contemporary Southern sympathies.

DeGroot suggested "Tahoe," a local tribal name he believed meant "water in a high place."

Knight agreed, and telegraphed to the Land Office in Washington, D.C., to officially change all federal maps to now read "Lake Tahoe."

"[19] The Placerville Mountain Democrat began a notorious rumor that "Tahoe" was actually an Indian renegade who plundered upon White settlers.

By the end of the 19th century, usage of "Lake Bigler" had nearly completely fallen out of popular vocabulary in favor of "Tahoe."