From a 1928 Detroit Edison employee newsletter:
The Evening News clipping found by Bishop:Detroit's First Incandescent Electric Light Plant
In his research into early Detroit Edison history, J. W. Bishop, Superintendent of Substations, ferreted out the accompanying clipping from the Detroit "Evening News" of Monday, January 29th, 1883. The picture below [not included] shows Metcalf Bros. store, where the first incandescent electric plant in Detroit was installed. Mr. Bishop's data shows that the first electric light plant of any kind in Detroit was an arc lamp outfit brought here by a traveling circus in 1879. The arc lights were a widely advertised feature of the circus program.
The Edison Electric Light
The introduction of the Edison incandescent light in Detroit was witnessed by a large throng of people on Saturday night at Metcalf Bros. & Co's dry goods store. The "plant" was fully described in Friday's News. On Saturday it was put in operation, and from 5 to 10 p.m. the lights were kept burning. There are 88 lamps on the ground floor, and the scene there was quite brilliant, but there was none of the dazzling light. The lamps at Metcalf's burned steadily and without any perceptible variation or flicker, and the machinery seemed to work to a charm. There are various opinions expressed as to the merits of this light, many pronouncing it a grand success and others being disappointed in not finding it more powerful and brilliant.
President Legett, of the Brush Company, was asked his opinion of the light, and said that it had undergone no change. He did not believe a steady, reliable incandescent light could be produced by direct generation, and he had no doubt that in a few months he would have the pleasure of substituting a Brush storage battery for the Edison plant now in Metcalf Bros. & Co.'s establishment. He had received word that at least one storage battery would be shipped to Detroit by March 1 from Cleveland, and the public would then have a chance to compare the two systems. Since the exhibition given by Professor Brush with this battery in New York, the company at Cleveland has received orders for $280,000 worth of these plants, and this is, to say the least, a strong testimonial of confidence in the system.
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