3D Model of Classic Street Light By PerspectX (Browse This Publisher's Products) (View Profile)

 

Before incandescent lamps, gas lighting was employed. The earliest lamps required that a lamplighter tour the town at dusk, lighting each of the lamps, but later designs employed ignition devices that would automatically strike the flame when the gas supply was activated. The earliest of such street lamps were built in the Arab Empire,  especially in Cordoba.

The first street in the world to be lit by electric light was Mosley Street, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The street was lit by Joseph Swan's incandescent lamp in February, 1879. Wabash, Indiana holds the title of being the second electrically-lit city in the world, which took place on February 2, 1880. Four 3,000 candlepower Brush arc lamps suspended over the courthouse rendered the town square "as light as midday." Kimberley, a city in the centre of South Africa, was the first city in Africa to have electric street lights - first lit on 1 September 1882. Timisoara, in present-day Romania, was the first city in mainland Europe to have electric public lighting on the 12th of November 1884. 731 lamps were used.