San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC) Digital Collection

The PUC online collection includes over 200 images, spanning 1887 to 1968, of significant events and projects such as the building of the Hetch Hetchy Railroad and O’Shaughnessey Dam, destruction from the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, and the construction of Yerba Buena Shoals on Treasure Island. These historic industrial photographs document the pipelines, tunnels, reservoirs, dams, powerhouses and pumping stations that the PUC has built and maintained in order to provide water, sewerage and municipal power services to the City and County of San Francisco. These digital visual materials come from albumen prints, glass plate negatives, and lantern slides that the PUC has scanned; and the PUC retains physical ownership of the original formats.