Michael O'Shaughnessy

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Today's state of the dam named after O'Shaughnessy in Yosemite National Park (the dam was expanded in 1938 from originally 69 meters to a height of 95 meters). The flooding of the Hetch Hetchy Valley remains the subject of controversy to this day.

Michael Maurice O'Shaughnessy (born May 28, 1864 in the County of Limerick , Ireland ; † October 12, 1934 in San Francisco ) was an Irish-born civil engineer who, in the first half of the 20th century, had a decisive influence on the development of the city as a city planner San Francisco had infrastructure . His largest and at the same time most controversial project was the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir , a reservoir in Yosemite National Park , which to this day supplies drinking water and electricity for the San Francisco Bay Area .

Life

O'Shaughnessy was born in Limerick, Ireland in 1864. In 1884 he graduated from the Royal University of Dublin with a degree in engineering . The following year he emigrated to the United States , where he was initially involved in the construction of the Sierra Valley and Mohawk Railroad as an assistant engineer in Plumas County in the Sierra Nevada . He then worked as a surveyor for the Southern Pacific Railroad .

In 1889, O'Shaughnessy opened an engineering office in San Francisco and planned the cities of Mill Valley and Sausalito in what is now Marin County . A year later he married Mary Spottiswood, with whom he had five children.

In 1893 and 1894 he was chief engineer of the California Midwinter Exposition , an international exhibition on the grounds of what is now the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. After the exhibition closed, he became chief engineer for the Mountain Copper Company in Shasta County . He then went to Hawaii , where he planned irrigation systems for the sugar plantations there.

Shortly after the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906 , O'Shaughnessy returned to California and was initially hired by the Southern California Mountain Water Company as chief engineer for the planning of the San Diego Aqueduct . In 1912 he gave up his own engineering office and joined the city of San Francisco as an urban planner. He must have been particularly fascinated by this job, as reports indicate that as an employee of the city he received only a fraction of his income as an independent engineer.

In order to ensure the water and electricity supply of San Francisco, O'Shaughnessy devoted himself to his largest project, the Hetch Hetchy Project, for the last twenty years of his life . Under his guidance, a dam (today: O'Shaughnessy Dam ) was built in the Hetch Hetchy Valley . In addition to the dam, the project, which cost more than 100 million dollars, included a 68- mile (109 km) long railway line, two power plants, high-voltage lines and a 150-mile system of water pipes and tunnels. The construction of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park provoked protests among early environmental activists such as John Muir .

As part of his work as a city planner in San Francisco, O'Shaughnessy completed large-scale projects such as the construction of high-pressure water pipes for the fire water supply and devoted himself to new projects such as the construction of a 68-mile track system for the San Francisco tram and the construction of road tunnels , Sewers, sea walls and major roads.

O'Shaughnessy did not live to see the commissioning of the water supply he had planned. Sixteen days before the first water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir flowed into San Francisco, he died of a heart attack.

Publications

literature

  • Charles R. Boden: Michael Maurice O'Shaughnessy , in: California Historical Society Quarterly 13, 4 (1934), pp. 415-416.
  • Robert W. Cherny: City Commercial, City Beautiful, City Practical: The San Francisco Visions of William C. Ralston, James D. Phelan, and Michael M. O'Shaughnessy , in: California History 73, 4 (1994/1995), Pp. 296-307.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. on this and on the following Charles R. Boden, Michael Maurice O'Shaughnessy , in: California Historical Society Quarterly 13, 4 (1934), pp. 415-416.
  2. ↑ Boden, Michael Maurice O'Shaughnessy , p. 416, says that O'Shaughnessy received only a quarter of his previous income as an employee of the City of San Francisco, whereas Cherny, City Commercial, City Beautiful, City Practical , p. 305, speaks more cautiously of a “salary less than half that of his private practice”.
  3. ^ Boden, Michael Maurice O'Shaughnessy , p. 416.
personal data
SURNAME O'Shaughnessy, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES O'Shaughnessy, Michael Maurice
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish civil engineer, city planner of San Francisco
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Limerick county
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 1934
Place of death San Francisco