Seattle's First Electric Lights
The Seattle Electric Light Company fires up its dynamo, turning darkness into a clear, white glow.
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.
Last night the Seattle Electric Light Company gave an exhibition at their headquarters on Jackson Street, near Commercial. Eleven sixteen-candle power lamps were stationed along the room and as sufficient steam was accumulated the dynamo was started, the lights turned on, and the room was immediately made brilliant with a clear, white light. The dynamo is capable of supplying five hundred lamps of the same power equal to an ordinary gas jet. The company have orders for four hundred lamps now, and it is expected that the demand will greatly increase as soon as the advantages of the light become apparent. The boiler and engine were made by the Washington Iron Works of this city, and are excellent in every particular.
“The room was immediately made brilliant with a clear, white light.”
In 1886, electric lighting was a novelty that promised to banish the 'sudden darkness' of gas. Today, Seattle is a center for the global energy infrastructure that evolved from these early experiments, though we still grapple with the legacy of building our power grid on the same streets that have since been regraded and paved over.
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