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Page: of 11
Ture year was 1852. The setting was San Francisco of the gold rush era,
feverish with excitement and bursting with growth. Peter Donahue, a
young foundryman, with a franchise from the infant city and little else
but faith and enterprise, organized the San Francisco Gas Company
with several associates. Reality began to clothe his dream of lighting the
streets with gas in the great city he foresaw rising beside the Golden
Gate.
Another event of historic importance to the future of California took
place in the Sierra Nevada foothills in 1850. In what is now Nevada
County, five gold seekers headed by Charles Marsh, a civil engineer,
formed the Rock Creek Water Company to bring precious water by
ditch to work dry hillside gold diggings. They were the first of many
thousands of miners who unknowingly prepared the way for the great
Sierra hydroelectric development of today by building a vast system
of mountain reservoirs and waterways.
These were the origins of Pacific Gas and Electric Company. They
were the earliest trickles in two streams of economic development which
merged finally in one organization, now pridefully commemorating one
hundred years in the service of California.