"Moonlight Tower" Carbon-arc Lamps

[Brock7]

Another view of #7 at Jefferson & Woodward?

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?c=dpa1ic;select1=all;rgn1=ic_all;back=back1280 175762;q1=henry%20st;chaperone=S-DPA1IC-X-DPA4315%20DPA4315.TIF;evl=full-image;chaperone=S-DPA1IC-X-DPA4315 DPA4315.TIF;quality=1;view=entry;subview=detail;cc =dpa1ic;entryid=x-dpa4315;viewid=DPA4315.TIF;start=;resnum=18

Clarke and Reardon printers are listed as being at 60 Woodward ES, so that locates the tower on the NE corner.

Here's another shot of it with a cigar store wooden indian.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/imag...5DEB02E914.TIF

[MikeM]

I think it's the SE corner, looking east on Jefferson in both shots.

[MikeM]

Looking at Al's link to the Google Books version of the lighting department's annual reports, I see the 1897 report had a map of streetlight locations. It looks as if the map was printed on thin paper and never unfolded when the report was scanned. You can barely make out the locations of some of the light towers:



Attachment 6951




E Grand Blvd & Jos Campau:

Attachment 6952

[Retroit]

Keep 'em coming. Since it appears that my previous links to the Bing Map update automatically each time I add a new marker, I won't bother to keep posting a new link every time I make a change/addition.

[[I know, I know, I'm a little slow at figuring out the obvious. )

[MikeM]

Jos Campau & Jay
Jos Campau & Clinton [[south side of Clinton Park)
Chene & Franklin
Jefferson & McDougall
Jefferson & Leib
Lafayette & Bellevue
Jefferson & Concord

Attachment 6953

[MikeM]

Some more guesses; I might be off by a street or two:

Military & Plumer
Military & Otis
Military & Horatio
Michigan & Wesson
Junction & McGregor
Michigan & 31st
31st & Buchanan
W Grand Blvd & Nall
W Grand Blvd & W Warren
Roosevelt & Hancock
Roosevelt & Myrtle
23rd & Kirby
23rd & Poplar
23rd & Michigan
W Warren & Maybury Grand
Maybury Grand & Myrtle
Grand River & Kirby
Grand River & W Warren
Grand River & Wabash
W Warren & 12th
17th & Poplar
17th & Butternut
Michigan & 15th


Attachment 6954

[MikeM]

W Grand & Vinewood
W Grand & Linwood
W Grand & 14th
Linwood & McGraw



Attachment 6955


That's all I got.

[Brock7]

Did you notice what page the map is on? I'd like to take a crack at it.

[MikeM]

I have the .pdf version stored on my disk. It would be on pages 104-105 of that version of this collection:

http://books.google.com/books?id=iDQ...page&q&f=false

[MikeM]

A few other tidbits from those reports:

From 1896 -- 135 towers:

Attachment 6956



1897 -- 137 towers:

Attachment 6957



1898 -- 138 towers:

Attachment 6958


The previous number of 142 I quoted was from Raymond Miller's "Kilowatts at Work", a history of Detroit Edison. That was the number of towers the Brush Electric Lighting Company installed when they held the contract from 1884-1890. Then the Detroit Electric Light & Power Company won the contract for the next three years and Brush refused the use of their own towers, so DELPC estimated that they would have to install approximately 100 more towers. However the DELPC's holding company acquired Brush a year or so later, so perhaps they didn't build that many more after all [[although I thought I once saw the total number as 309).

I assume that when the city took over the lighting responsibility [[including building their own power plant) that they leased or acquired the remaining light towers from Brush/DELPC rather than build another ~137.

[MikeM]

1899 -- 140:

Attachment 6959


1900 -- 137 or 138:

Attachment 6960

Attachment 6961


1902:

Attachment 6962

[Brock7]

Thanks. I found them pretty easily by paging through the text version and switching back to copy them. They're at section 4, xxviii and xxix. I'll play with them tomorrow.

[Retroit]

MikeM, I'm very impressed that you were able to make sense of those maps.

That makes 61 locations identified, two with two towers, for a total of 63 towers.

[EastsideAl]

Great work MikeM. I figured there must be something like that buried somewhere.

Here are links to some photos that seem to have been taken from the tower in City Hall a few years before the time of that map. Perhaps during the Brush contract years, as the old Central Farmers Market is still standing in Cadillac Square, which I believe was demolished in the early 1890s. These pictures give some idea of what the city looked like when many of these towers were standing. Clicking for larger views and zooming in reveals a lot of towers in the distance.

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/imag...5DEB02E502.TIF

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/imag...5DEB02E492.TIF

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/imag...5DEB02E509.TIF

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/imag...5DEB02E424.TIF

[Brock7]

Those are great views - at least 9 towers in the last one. There don't seem to be any on Gratiot except for the one at Miami. I haven't come up with any guesses for the locations, but for the last photo Chas. A. Sterling is listed in the 1895 directory at 98-110 Bates between Larned and Congress and Banner Cigar at 105-109 Randolph also between Larned and Congress.

[Brock7]

MikeM, did you do something enhance the map from the pdf? I'm wondering because the maps you posted seem a little more detailed than the png I saved from Google books.

Retroit, does Bing know where the old streets were or did you have to eyeball it where there aren't any streets left.

These are what I see in addition to the locations listed by MikeM.
Michigan & Scotten - SW
Hancock & Scotten - SE
Toledo & Clark - NE
Toledo & 23rd - SW
14th & Hudson - SW
19th & Rose - ?

These are ones I think I see differently than MikeM.
*Grand Blvd. & Rosa Parks[[12th) - NE [W Grand & 14th]
*Military[[Welch) & Stark - NW [Military & Otis - Stark St still exists there if you zoom in enough]
*M. L. King Blvd[[Myrtle) & 25th - NW [Roosevelt & Myrtle]

Here are the rest with the corners I think are indicated by the map.
Michigan & 15th - SE
Michigan & 23rd - SE
Michigan & 31st - NE
Michigan & Wesson - SE
Grand River & Avery[[National) - NW
Grand River & Wabash - NE
Grand River & 17th - SW [Grand River & W Warren]
Humbolt & Ford Frwy[[Kirby) - center of intersection east of Grand River
Grand River & Grand Blvd. - SW [W Grand & Vinewood]
Grand Blvd. & Linwood[[18th) - SW
Grand Blvd. & Nall Ave - SE
Grand Blvd. & Warren[[Plymouth) - SE
Rosa Parks[[12th) Warren - N?
Linwood[[18th) & McGraw - NW
Military[[Welch) & Plumer - NW
Military[[Welch) & Horatio - SW
Junction & [[a spot between Michigan Central RR & McGregor)
Buchanan & 31st - SE
17th & Butternut - NW
17th & Poplar - NW
M. L. King Blvd[[Myrtle) & Jeffries Frwy[[Mayberry Grand Ave) - NE
Hancock & Roosevelt[[26th) - SE
23rd & Poplar - SW
23rd & Kirby
Jeffries Frwy[[Mayberry Grand Ave) & Warren - SE

[MikeM]

MikeM, did you do something enhance the map from the pdf? I'm wondering because the maps you posted seem a little more detailed than the png I saved from Google books.

I used Photoshop to clip and enhance the .pdf.

[EastsideAl]

Here's a Shorpy photo from 1908 looking up Woodward from Grand Circus Park that shows literally dozens of moonlight towers way off into the distance.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/11332?size=_original

Also, check out the baseball score on the top off a building on the east side of Woodward. I belive it shows a score from the Tigers' pennant deciding series with the Chicago White Sox at the end of the 1908 season.

[Jimaz]

Why use many streetlights when one will do?

The moonlight towers of Austin, Texas, are the last urban municipal lighting towers in the world: because before every street was wired to the grid, how else would you light up a city?