City of Light: The History of Lighting in St. Louis

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 

• 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