14½x19½” photograph, on 20x26” backing board, of a group of seven men - W.B.Bush, Louis H. Peterson, A.G.Allen, Charles T. McEnery, C.F.Adams, Henry Becker, and George S. Long – captioned in ink, “Twin Peaks Tunnel Improvement Convention Organizers, April 18, 1910”.

This photograph represents the genesis of a significant development in San Francisco history that culminated in the opening of the Twin Peaks Tunnel on July 14, 1917.

Seven years earlier, the seven men in this picture, representing the Eureka Valley and Mission Heights Improvement Clubs, the Upper Market Street Association and other  groups called a “Convention” of  50 “improvement clubs” and civic organizations established in the city after the Earthquake and fire, to “further the project” of building a railway tunnel under Twin Peaks, which would open a vast area of “unimproved, unpopulated and inaccessible”  land to city development, adding an estimated 200,000 people to the San Francisco population.

The day this photo is dated – significantly chosen as the fourth anniversary of the destruction of the city – over 200 representatives of clubs in the Richmond, Sunset, Parkside, Ingleside, Western Addition,  North Beach, Mission and Potrero districts met to launch the project for building a mile+ long tunnel that would cost some $2.5 million to build. The years that followed saw various conflicting plans considered (and costs rising) with many of the city’s political “movers and shakers” involved in its eventual evolution – the far-sighted gentlemen in this photograph being long forgotten.