Peter Donahue

Who was Peter Donahue?

Peter Donahue, a founder of industrial San Francisco, made his way to gold-rush San Francisco aboard the steamship Oregon from Ireland by way of Peru [actually, Donahue was part of the Irish diaspora to Scotland: he was born and raised in Glasgow, and came to California after a stint working as a Machinist in Patterson, New Jersey. He was delivering a gunboat made in New Jersey to the Peruvian Government. Then, he took passage to California from Peru.]

In 1849, Peter and his brothers opened a blacksmith's shop at First and Mission Streets. Later, they expanded it into a foundry and added a gas works, the San Francisco Gas Company, a forerunner of Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

In 1860, Donahue organized the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad, and in the 1870s he built a North Bay line from Donahue, California to Cazadero, California which eventually became the Northwestern Pacific Railroad. Donahue built the first railroad to serve Santa Rosa, California.

The Mechanics Monument in San Francisco, unveiled in 1901, was a tribute to the Donahue brothers' contributions, commissioned by his son James Mervyn Donahue, and designed by Douglas Tilden.