On the occasion of Morlights heading to St. Louis for the 2025 Building Museums Symposium, we're launching a brand new feature on the Morlights blog: the history of lighting in cities.
And it turns out St. Louis happens to have quite the rich history of lighting! Let's dig in:
- 1878 - Faust’s Restaurant was first commercial building illuminated with electric lighting in St. Louis using two Gramme Dynamos
- 1887 - City of St Louis. introduces electrically operated street cars
- 1889 - St. Louis holds its Exposition of Light
- 1891 - International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) forms in St Louis.
- 1897 - St. Louis passes ordinance requiring all wires in the business district to be placed underground
- 1923 - Last St. Louis gas streetlight is replaced with electric street light
- 1960 - St. Louis Arch first illuminated using High-Pressure Sodium
- 1990s - St. Louis Arch illumination changed to Xenon lamps - utilized 44 lamps, 1000 hour lifespan, $950 replacement lamps
- 2023 - St. Louis Arch illuminated with all LED sources
References and Notes:
- Figure 1: http://www.losttables.com/faust/images/TF05.jpg
- Figure 2: http://www.cable-car-guy.com/images/srj_short_system_188805_001.jpg
- Figure 3: https://www.loc.gov/resource/stereo.1s03558/
- Figure 4: https://bejatc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Founding_Fathers_Large1-1024x824.jpg
- Figure 5: https://media2.riverfronttimes.com/riverfronttimes/imager/historic-st-louis-then-and-now/u/zoom/37106774/washington-avenue-postcard.webp?cb=1733476484
- Figure 6: https://ihitthebutton.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/gateway-arch-at-night-Scaled.jpg
- St Louis IBEW Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee: https://stlejatc.org/History.phtml
- http://www.cable-car-guy.com
- https://ihitthebutton.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/gateway-arch-at-night-scaled.jpg
- https://bejatc.org/about-us/
- Library of Congress
- www.losttables.com
