1864-1934
Michael Maurice O’Shaughnessy was born in Limerick, Ireland on May 28, 1864. His parents were Patrick and Margaret (O’Donnell) O’Shaughnessy. He graduated with honors with the degree of Bachelor of Engineering from the Royal University at Dublin at the age of twenty. He then emigrated to the United States and moved on to California where he spent most of his civil engineering career.O’Shaughnessy’s early career involved engineering positions with various California railroads before working in water resources in California and Hawaii from 1896 through 1906. These projects included work for the Spring Valley Water Company and the design and construction of water supply works for about 20 sugar plantations in Hawaii. Those projects included the Olokele Aqueduct on Kauai (10 mi long with tunnels), the Koolau, Keanaii Aqueduct (also 10 mi long with tunnels), and the Kohola Aqueduct on Hawaii (about 30 mi). From 1907 through 1912, he was Chief and Consulting Engineer of the Southern California Mountain Water Company at San Diego while the Dulzura Conduit (13.38 mi long, including 17 tunnels) and the Morena (Rock Fill) Dam, with a maximum height of 262 ft (1911) were designed and constructed.
On September 1, 1912, O’Shaughnessy was appointed City Engineer of San Francisco, a position he held for twenty years when he was made Consulting Engineer, which he held until his death. O’Shaughnessy’s work as City Engineer included the design and construction responsibility for a wide variety of municipal projects. He had responsible charge of the design and construction of the City’s public works during this period with an aggregate cost of about $180 million. His most notable project was the design and construction of the Hetch Hetchy Water Supply Project, which supplied water and hydroelectric power for San Francisco at a total project cost of $86 million, with construction starting in 1914. This project included the design and construction of the first phase of the curved-gravity concrete dam at Hetch Hetchy Valley (in Yosemite National Park), completed in 1923; the construction of a 1,260-ft-long multiple-arch concrete dam at Lake Eleanor; the construction of 38 miles of mountain tunnels and pipe; the construction of 47 miles of steel pipe across the San Joaquin Valley; the construction of 29 miles of tunnel through the Coast Range; and the construction of 23 miles of pipe and tunnels to Crystal Springs Reservoir, for a total constructed length of 137 miles. Two hydroelectric powerplants were also constructed as part of this project. The dam at Hetch Hetchy Valley was named O’Shaughnessy Dam in his honor. As designed, the dam was raised 85 feet to a maximum height of 430 feet, during 1935-38.
During O’Shaughnessy’s work as San Francisco’s City Engineer (1912 to 1932), he was also involved with the proposed Golden Gate Bridge, which is one of ASCE’s National Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks. In 1916, James H. Wilkins, a structural engineer and newspaper editor for the San Francisco Call Bulletin, captured the attention of City Engineer O’Shaughnessy. In August 1919, City officials formally requested that O'Shaughnessy explore the possibility of building a bridge that crossed the Golden Gate. O’Shaughnessy consulted a number of engineers across the United States about feasibility and cost of building a bridge across the strait. Most speculated that a bridge would cost over $100 million and/or that one could not be built. Joseph Baermann Strauss that came forward and said such a bridge was not only feasible but could be built for $25 to $30 million. In 1921, Strauss submitted his preliminary sketches to O’Shaughnessy and Edward Rainey, Secretary to the Mayor Rolph of San Francisco and the cost estimate for the original symmetrical cantilever-suspension hybrid span design was only $17 million. O’Shaughnessy finally released the cantilever-suspension hybrid bridge design to the public in December 1922. In 1923, the formation of a special district of the State of California to construct the bridge was proposed by City Engineer O’Shaughnessy, Edward Rainey (Secretary to the Mayor of San Francisco), and engineer Joseph B. Strauss. After several years in court, the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District was incorporated on December 4, 1928. Secretary of War Patrick Hurley issued the bridge’s construction permit August 11, 1930. On November 4, 1930, voters within the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District’s six member counties passed the $35 million bond issue to finance the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, which ended O’Shaughnessy’s involvement.
During this same period, O’Shaughnessy also consulted on a variety of other projects, including California’s Strawberry (Rock Fill) Dam (1914), Lower Otay Dam (near San Diego, 1916), Barrett Dam (near San Diego, 1916), and Alpine Dam and distribution works (in Marin County, 1916-18); Kentucky’s Dix River Dam (1925); and California’s New Bowman (Rock Fill) Dam (Yuba River, 1926).
In 1902, O’Shaughnessy was elected a Member of ASCE, joined the new San Francisco Association of the Members of ASCE in 1905, and was president of the San Francisco Section in 1920. In the mid-1920s, O’Shaughnessy was a member of the first Board of Engineers on the Transbay Bridge across San Francisco Bay (the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, a NHCEL), collaborating with Robert Ridgway (Past-President and Hon. M. ASCE), Arthur N. Talbot (Past-President and Hon. M. ASCE), and John D. Galloway (Hon. M. ASCE). Among O’Shaughnessy’s other contributions to ASCE, he wrote the 1912 paper titled “Construction of the Morena Rock Fill Dam, San Diego County, California” for which he won ASCE’s James Laurie Prize in 1913. In 1922, he wrote the paper “Construction Progress of the Hetch Hetchy Water Supply of San Francisco, California”, which was also published in ASCE’s Transactions. O’Shaughnessy was also a member of the New England Water Works Association and the American Water Works Association, among others. Michael was married to Mary (Spottiswood) of San Francisco in 1890 and they had four daughters and one son. O’Shaughnessy passed away on October 12, 1934.
References
Memoir of Michael Maurice O’Shaughnessy, Transactions ASCE, Vol 100, 1935, pgs. 1710-1713.
“Guide to the Michael Maurice O'Shaughnessy Papers,” The Bancroft Library, University of California- Berkeley: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/hb5d5nb6sr/ “The M. M. (Michael Maurice) O'Shaughnessy papers, 1882-1937.
Boden, Charles R. (December 1934). "In Memoriam: Michael Maurice O'Shaughnessy". California Historical Society Quarterly. California Historical Society. 13 (4): 415–416.
Fredrich, Augustine J. (1986). “The Rise and Fall of Michael O’Shaughnessy,” Sons of Martha, ASCE.
Wikipedia Entry for Michael Maurice O’Shaughnessy: October 18, 2022.
Golden Gate Bridge Highway & Transportation District website – see the link: Construction - Bridge Construction | Golden Gate; accessed 10-19-2022.