While working on a project in the Presidio, a long lost tunnel was uncovered. Built in the 1850’s by the Mountain Spring Water Company to bring water from Mountain Lake to down town San Francisco, the project was not completed for lack of funds.
It certainly seemed like a good idea at the time. San Francisco was a new city and they needed to get water to where the people were. The idea was to bring water into the Presidio, then distribute it down town where it was needed. Of course, they were also concerned with fighting fires at the time, as the city had been destroyed twice already.
Presidio archeologists did some ‘digging’ in US Army records and were able to find long forgotten references to the tunnel and Mountain Spring Water Company. That’s pretty fascinating to me. Makes me wonder how many other long-forgotten treasures are in SF. Here’s the full story.
Long lost tunnel in the Presidio-SF Chronicle
