The History of Street Lighting in the United States

Street lights are now ubiquitous in the U.S.

Street lights are taken for granted now, but of course the concept had to start somewhere. In North America, the first quaint effort to light the streets was a single lantern in 1719 in Boston.

Misconceptions

The Boston fact belies the myth that Benjamin Franklin introduced streetlights to the American colonies. "Franklin oversaw the installation of streetlights in Philadelphia, and he designed a better streetlight, but several other cities had streetlights first," according to Franklin historian J.A. LaMay in a 2005 University of Delaware article.

Time Frame

The first lanterns along the streets of Philadelphia were installed sometime after 1757. Franklin's English lamp design was an improvement on the previous colonial lanterns. In 1773, a John Hancock-led committee installed 310 lamps in Boston. They burned whale oil and were lit in the evening between October 1 and May 1.

Gas and Electricity Firsts

In 1816, Baltimore became the first American city to install gas streetlights. According to the Greenshine New Energy Company, the public square road system in Cleveland, Ohio used electric lights on April 29, 1879. That North American first came just three months after an electric light went up on Mosley Street in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England.

References

• University of Delaware: Ben Franklin
• Early American Architecture; Hugh Morrison; Dover Publications; January 20, 2011
• Greenshine New Energy: History of Streetlighting