Michael O'Shaughnessy

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Michael M. O'Shaughnessy (born on May 28, 1864) Jointer, Ireland. O'Shaughnessy was the city engineer for the city of San Francisco during the first part of the twentieth century. Developer of the Hetch-Hetchy water system.

Father Patrick and mother Margaret O'Donnell were farmers. Michael attended school in County Limerick and County Tipperary. Studied at University College in Cork and University of Galway, graduated Royal University of Dublin, 1884.

Emigrated to U.S. in 1885, sailing from London then traveling to San Francisco overland by train, arriving on March 30, 1885. He first worked as an assistant engineer for the Sierra Valley and Mohawk Railroad. In 1886 he found employment with the Southern Pacific Railroad as a surveyor and worked on layout for the towns of Mill Valley and Sausalito, California. In 1889 he opened an engineering office in the city of San Francisco. He was appointed chief engineer for the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 in Golden Gate Park in 1890. Later, in 1895, he was awarded a commission by the Mountain Copper Company to design a narrow-gauge railroad, and he began working for for the Spring Valley Water Company, a private concern that controlled streams and springs on the San Francisco peninsula, later purchased by the city to become the San Francisco Water Department.

O'Shaughnessy oversaw construction of several major water supply projects in the Hawaiian Islands beginning in 1889. Upon return to California in 1906 he worked on the Morena Dam project outside San Diego and the Merced River Dam for the Crocker Land and Development Company. He also designed and supervised the construction of a water supply system for he city of Port Costa.

San Francisco Mayor James Rolph chose him as Chief Engineer for the City in September, 1912, convincing him to accept a salary less than half that of his private practice. O'Shaughnessy was uncertain that he wanted the job because in the past, the city had not always paid him for work done. His wife, the former Mary Spottiswood, a native of San Francisco, convinced him to accept. O'Shaughnessy issued dozens of reports during his years in office, nearly all descriptions of engineering projects intended to educate city's officials and the population. He once complained that he had to run "an engineering school, where as fast as he could teach the Supervisors what it was all about, the public turned them out and sent him new pupils." In this position O'Shaughnessy supervised the construction of the Twin Peaks Reservoir, the Stockton Street Tunnel, the Twin Peaks Tunnel, the Municipal Railway System and service to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915) along with numerous streets, avenues, a high-pressure fire system and new sewers in the city. San Francisco's present streetcar system -- the J, K, L, M, and N lines -- was pushed to completion by O'Shaughnessy between 1915 and 1927, but a massive bond issue advocated by O'Shaughnessy for further expansion was defeated by city voters in 1927.

O'Shaughnessy's largest and most controversial project was the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and power project (O'Shaughnessy Dam). While San Francisco rebuilt after the Earthquake and Fire of 1906 it's current water supply was inadequate to meet future growth. Hetch Hetchy began with a dam in the Yosemite and was linked to more than 150 miles of tunnels, pumping stations and pipelines to San Francisco. The project involved building not just a dam, but also a 68-mile-long railroad, several smaller dams, an aqueduct 156 miles long that included 85 miles of tunnels, some through solid granite, hydroelectric generating plants and transmission lines.

That the dam was planned for a valley in Yosemite National Park caused some opposition. One of the most potent opponents was the Sierra Club and it's founding President, John Muir. On December 19, 1913, Woodrow Wilson signed legislation authorizing the dam project. Construction began in 1914.Water from by the dam, named for O'Shaughnessy, crosses the foothills, the San Joaquin Valley, the coast ranges and San Francisco Bay through the Pulgas Water Temple and is stored in the Crystal Springs Reservoir.

O'Shaughnessy lost control of the project in 1932 when the Public Utilities Commission was formed. Edward Cahill was appointed to head up the new commission and O'Shaughnessy's deputy, Lloyd McAfee, was appointed manager and Chief Engineer for the Hetch Hetchy project. O'Shaughnessy died of a heart attack on October 12, 1934, sixteen days before Yosemite's water was delivered to San Francisco's reservoirs. O'Shaughnessy Boulevard in San Francisco is named for him.

[edit] References

Robert Cherny,"CITY COMMERCIAL, CITY BEAUTIFUL, CITY PRACTICAL: The San Francisco Visions Of William C. Ralston, James D. Phelan, And Michael M. O'Shaughnessy," originally published in California History magazine, Fall 1994