Tacoma’s Great White Way: Tungsten Streetlights Arrive
A new electrical experiment on Pacific Avenue aims to slash power consumption while brightening the path to the city docks.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The new tungsten lamps on Pacific avenue from the city hall to the Flyer dock are a big success, according to the opinion of those who use this street. The arc lamps were taken off last night and tungstens strung along the way, and the street was made much lighter on considerably less current. The new plan of City Electrician Lauzon promises to be a success and to give the city better light at less consumption of current. This plan may be a big factor in keeping the peak load down next winter below the 6,000 horsepower mark, if it is generally employed.
“The new tungsten lamps on Pacific avenue from the city hall to the Flyer dock are a big success.”
Tacoma’s early 20th-century obsession with efficient municipal energy distribution mirrors today's ongoing debates about grid capacity and the transition to smart, energy-efficient city infrastructure. This specific stretch of Pacific Avenue remains the heart of Tacoma’s downtown, though now illuminated by a mix of modern LED technology rather than tungsten.
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