Background
Michael Maurice O'Shaughnessy was born on May 28, 1864, in Clarina, Limerick County, Ireland, the son of Patrick and Margaret (O'Donnell) O'Shaughnessy.
(Excerpt from Report on Rapid Transit Plans for the City o...)
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Michael Maurice O'Shaughnessy was born on May 28, 1864, in Clarina, Limerick County, Ireland, the son of Patrick and Margaret (O'Donnell) O'Shaughnessy.
After attending Queen's College, Cork, and Queen's College, Galway, Michael O'Shaughnessy, entered the Royal University, Dublin, where in 1884 he was graduated with honors, receiving the degree of bachelor of engineering.
In 1885, Michael O'Shaughnessy emigrated to California and found employment as an assistant engineer with the Sierra Valley & Mohawk Railroad. In 1886-87 he was assistant engineer with the Southern Pacific Railroad, at various locations; and in 1888, for a short time, transitman in the city engineer's office, San Francisco. In the early nineties he worked at laying out town sites and making surveys for water systems, with headquarters in San Francisco. He did two tasks for the city which later he recalled without pleasure: surveying the extension of Market Street over Twin Peaks Mountain to the Pacific, and the extension of Protero Avenue along the bay shore to the county line. Through political juggling he lost his fee in each case, $5, 000.
O'Shaughnessy was chief engineer of the Midwinter International Exposition at San Francisco, 1893-94; and later chief engineer of the Mountain Copper Company, engaged in building a narrow-gage railroad. In the years 1896-98 he was employed by the Spring Valley Water Company and other corporations. Preferring work with private corporations in his specialty, hydraulic engineering, O'Shaughnessy was actively engaged in designing and constructing the water supply of twenty sugar plantations in Hawaii, 1899-1906, and built three aqueducts, each about ten miles long.
From 1907 to 1912 he was chief and consulting engineer of the Southern California Mountain Water Company at San Diego and built the Dulzura Conduit, more than thirteen miles long, and the Morena Rock Fill Dam, 262 feet high. His other works for this period include the rectification of the channel of the Salmas River for the Shreelo Sugar Company, a masonry dam on the Merced River for the Crocker-Huffman Land Company, and the water-works at Port Costa, California. This domestic tie with the city had much weight in his favorable consideration of an offer of the office of chief engineer, made by the mayor in August 1912. His annual salary, $15, 000, was less than half of his engineering fees for the previous year. During the twenty years of his incumbency he designed and constructed public works of an approximate value of $180, 000, 000. His tasks were augmented by the fire and earthquake of 1906, which necessitated the building of public utilities over the burnt area.
In addition to the extension of streets and sewers he had charge of the design and construction of new boulevards, tunnels, bridges, city-owned utilities, and hydro-electric projects. He built the municipal railway system, sixty-eight miles long, the main sewer under Golden Gate Park into the Pacific, the Stockton Street and Twin Peaks tunnels, and the Twin Peaks, Ocean Beach, Sloat, Junipero Serra, and Telegraph Hill boulevards, and he completed the auxiliary high-pressure fire system.
All O'Shaughnessy's undertakings, though important, were relatively minor compared with O'Shaughnessy's great work, the construction of the Hetch Hetchy water-supply system, which takes its name from the Hetch Hetchy Valley in the Yosemite National Park. His connection with the system lasted twenty-two years, the last two as consulting engineer for the completion of the project. In September 1912 he made a tour of inspection of Hetch Hetchy and in November he was at the national capital participating in one of the political skirmishes over the project. Again in Washington in the following year he played an important part in securing the passage of the Raker Act, which gave the city the necessary rights over the public lands. Throughout the long period of construction he vigorously fought all opponents who tried to stop the work or thwart his plans. He described the engineering problems as simple, but the political problems as complex.
During the period of his employment by San Francisco O'Shaughnessy acted as a consulting engineer for Detroit, Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and San Diego, and private corporations.
O'Shaughnessy's last work was a main aqueduct in San Francisco. The cost of the system when completed was $86, 000, 000; its daily capacity, 400, 000, 000 gallons of water. A great celebration honoring the builder was planned for October 28, 1934, when the water was to be turned into the aqueduct. Sixteen days earlier O'Shaughnessy died suddenly at his home, of a heart attack. The interment was at the Holy Cross Cemetery, San Francisco.
(Excerpt from Report on Rapid Transit Plans for the City o...)
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On October 21, 1890, Michael O'Shaughnessy was married to Mary Spottiswood, of San Francisco, by whom he had five children, Margaret, Mary, Helen, Elizabeth, and Francis.