Guest Blogger Wednesday: A Piece of SF History, Right Under Your Feet (Sort Of).

urrcover.jpg
Every Wednesday, we’ll be featuring a Guest Blogger who will share their insights into city life, Our Fair MUNI, or anything that comes to mind. This week’s guest writer is “Mason Powell,” who’s been a contributor to the site since its beginnings in 2005, and provides behind the scenes help, including designing our famous The N Is Near T shirts!
Yes, that’s a picture of a manhole cover. I took it while leaving the KPIX Eye on Blogs blogger party last fall! Now, I don’t usually go around looking at manhole covers, but this one was different. It had the markings of the old United Railroads!
For those of us who are not transit nerds, a little background. The URR was the main transportation provider in San Francisco between 1902 and 1921. After it went bankrupt, it reorganized into the Market Street Railway, which was eventually sold to Muni in 1944. The company’s #1,#2, and #3 lines all passed by here. Today the #2 and #3 lines are still running on Sutter Street, more or less, and keeping watch over (or is it under?) all of this is a piece of our transportation history.
Would you like to be a guest blogger? Email me and tell me a little about yourself and what you’d like to write about! Most of our spots are filled for now, but there’s always room for more!

This entry was posted in Guest Bloggers, Local History, SF Photos, Urban Life and Culture. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to Guest Blogger Wednesday: A Piece of SF History, Right Under Your Feet (Sort Of).

  1. Bob Davis says:

    Wow! That is a collector’s item (at least the photo is–I wouldn’t want to collect the casting itself!). Manhole covers often outlast the company that installed them by many years and corporate changes. In San Marino, near where I live, there used to be (and may still be) Home Telephone Co. covers that go back just as far as United Railroads. I have a photo (somewhere) of a Market St. Ry. track part with MSRY cast into it at Geneva Carhouse (from back in the PCC days–it probably IS in someone’s collection now).

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