---
title: "Did You Know? Shining Light on History: America's First Electric Streetlights"
description: Did You Know? America's First Electric Streetlights.
---

[Morlights Blog](https://blog.morlights.com/morlights-blog)

# [Did You Know? Shining Light on History: America's First Electric Streetlights](https://blog.morlights.com/morlights-blog/did-you-know-shining-light-on-history-americas-first-electric-streetlights)

 Written by [Admin](https://blog.morlights.com/morlights-blog/author/admin) | Mar 21, 2025 3:53:05 PM

Lighting is ubiquitous. But it wasn't always that way. Did you know that the first town in America to have fully electric streetlights was Wabash, Indiana, in 1880. The town employed Charles F. Brush's carbon-arc light system.

Brush installed the first electric street lamps one year prior in Cleveland's Public Square (pictured left, courtesy, Library of Congress).

He would eventually install electric streetlight systems in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other cities across the U.S. before selling his Brush Electric Co. to the Thomson Houston Co., which would merge with Edison General Electric Co. in 1892 to form the company still known today as General Electric.

([Image via Library of Congress](https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2024/10/lighting-america-the-early-adoption-of-electric-light/))

[View full post](https://blog.morlights.com/morlights-blog/did-you-know-shining-light-on-history-americas-first-electric-streetlights)

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