Pumping Station No. 2 San Francisco Fire Department Auxiliary Water Supply System
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Why it's listed
Pumping Station No. 2 is a Mission Revival building of steel and reinforced concrete at the foot of Van Ness Avenue, on bedrock at the edge of San Francisco Bay within the Fort Mason reservation. City employees working under City Engineer Marsden Manson designed it, and Caldwell & Company built it in 1912. It served as one of two emergency stations in the auxiliary water supply system created after the 1906 earthquake and fires broke about 300 water mains and left many districts without water. The station could draw salt water from the Bay into a separate high-pressure pipe network. Inside are six Babcock and Wilcox boilers, four turbine-driven pumps and three turbine generators, which also supplied electricity to Fort Mason until 1942. The plant has kept steam up in two boilers around the clock since 1913. Its significance rests on the engineering and planning of the whole system, of which this building is the portion on federal land.
Significance in brief: The nomination argues local significance in Engineering and Community Planning. The station is the portion on federal land of San Francisco's "earthquake-proof" auxiliary high-pressure fire water system, designed after the 1906 earthquake fires. It could pump salt water from the Bay when fresh sources failed.
Machine-generated summary. This summary was generated by a language model from the official nomination document and has not been reviewed line by line by an editor. It may contain errors. Check the source document before relying on any detail. Source: nomination document (PDF) · National Archives catalog entry. NRHP reference 76000177, listed May 13, 1976. Summary generated October 2026 (model claude-sonnet-5-5, prompt v1.0-2026-10-29, confidence high).
Key facts
| Address | N end of Van Ness Ave, San Francisco |
|---|---|
| County | San Francisco |
| Listed | May 13, 1976 |
| Reference number | 76000177 |
| Resource type | Building |
| Period of significance | 1912 to the present |
| Architect / builder | Marsden Manson/Caldwell & Co. |
| Architectural style | Mission Revival |
| Areas of significance | Community Planning and Development, Engineering |
| Level of significance | Local |
| Status (as stated in the nomination) | Occupied and operational as of 1975, with the plant maintained in excellent condition. The city planned to replace the steam pump turbines with diesel engines and demolish the smokestack. |
| Acreage | 1 |
| Within district | Fort Mason Historic District |
| Coordinates | 37.80781, -122.42684 (NPS GIS) |
What listing means for this property
For an income-producing building, listing (individually or as a contributing building in a district) is the gateway to the 20% federal rehabilitation tax credit on qualified rehabilitation costs, often stackable with state credits. Work claiming the credit must follow the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and be approved in advance.
Listing does not restrict a private owner acting without federal money or permits; where federal funding or licensing is involved, Section 106 review applies.
General information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change; confirm with your State Historic Preservation Office or a qualified adviser.
Sources and further reading
- National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places database (snapshot May 2026), reference 76000177.
- Nomination form (PDF, National Archives) — catalog entry
- Wikipedia article (used for cross-checking only; text not reproduced here)
- Wikidata Q60747365
- This listing as JSON
Last updated October 2026. Found an error? See the editorial policy for how to report it.