New Incandescent Lighting Downtown…In 1928

Eighty-two years ago a big change occurred downtown, modern street lights were switched on.  From the 1989 book St. Louis Day by Day by Francis Hurd Stadler:

Today we take modern lighting for granted but to earlier generations the streets of St. Louis were not always so well lit. Most likely these lights were a result of the 1923 bond issue:

The first effort to coordinate the City’s street pattern came in 1917, when the recently organized City Plan Commission published its first major street plan. The majority of the street widenings, connections and openings which were accomplished under the 1923 bond issue were based upon this plan. The City is indebted to the wisdom of the electorate of 1923 for wide streets such as Olive, Market, Gravois, and Natural Bridge. A glance at a city map made prior to these improvements shows many of these streets to be in 60 feet rights-of-way accommodating only two streetcar tracks and one lane of parking on each side. In addition, they were paved with cobblestones, a rough surface for motorists. The passage of the 1923 bond issue of $87, 000, 000 was a notable achievement in a period characterized by a much slower growth rate than had been enjoyed immediately after the World’s Fair. St. Louis became aware of its outmoded physical features and gave itself an extensive face lifting by means of the bond issue. Civic inertia was attacked on many fronts resulting in new hospitals, electric street lighting for the entire City, construction of the Memorial Plaza, Kiel Auditorium and the Civil Courts building, as well as extensive street improvements. The largest single project to be completed was the River Des Peres drainage works which eliminated an open sewer in the West End and provided for proper drainage of flood waters over the full length of the stream within the City.

The lights came on less than a year before the 1929 Wall Street Crash.

– Steve Patterson