Newport Switches On Its Electric Night
After months of waiting on parts, the town's new $5,000 street-lighting system blazes to life — eight 2,000-candlepower arc lights and 26 tungsten incandescents, billed to the city at $82.50 a month.
After several months of delay caused by the non-arrival of parts of the equipment, Newport's street lighting system was completed and turned on for the first time Tuesday evening. The system has been installed by the Northern Idaho Montana Power Co. at a cost of over $5,000. The old street lighting system, poles, wiring and all, has been discarded.
The lights, as located by the town council, provide for illumination of all parts of the town. Eight arc lights of 2,000 candle power each are used and 26 tungsten incandescents of 32-candle power. The cost to the city is $6.25 per month for the arcs and $1.25 per month for the incandescents, making a total monthly cost to the town of $82.50. The light system is on a separate circuit from the business and residence lines and is not turned on until required. In Old Town the street lights are still connected with the old system.
The arc lights are of the type known as metallic series arcs, and are the latest and best type of arcs produced for street lighting purposes. There is nothing better made and the Northern Idaho Montana Power Co. has again shown enterprise in furnishing us with a model street lighting system, which is unsurpassed in any town the size of Newport in the Northwest.
In order to illuminate the arcs a special equipment known as a "tun" is necessary to transform the electricity from direct to alternating current. This machine is located in the new sub-station. In order to get this type of light it was necessary for the town to take the equivalent of fifteen arcs, as they can only be operated in series.
Night illumination, such as Newport now has, cannot fail to make a good impression on visitors and passengers on the transcontinental trains that pass through here at night. It stamps the community as up-to-date and progressive and as police protection is worth more than its cost to the town. Newport's public utilities are of a high order and the spending of so much money here is an indication of faith in the future prosperity and growth of the town.
“Night illumination, such as Newport now has, cannot fail to make a good impression on visitors and passengers on the transcontinental trains that pass through here at night.”
A town buying its own streetlights from a private power company was a civic coming-of-age moment — the modern equivalent of a city announcing broadband or a new substation. Newport's boosterish pride in being "best lighted" reads like a chamber-of-commerce post today, and the $82.50 monthly bill is a reminder that public utilities have always been a line item and a political argument.
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