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EARLY LOS ANGELES STREET LIGHTS

Gas Lighting Comes to Los Angeles

1867 to the Late 1870s

Before electric lighting transformed American cities, Los Angeles relied on gas lamps to illuminate its streets. Introduced in the late 1860s, these early lights marked the city’s first organized effort to provide nighttime visibility and public safety. Though modest in number, the gas lamps represented an important step in Los Angeles’ transition from a frontier town into a growing urban community.

Historical Notes

In 1867 the Los Angeles Gas Company installed 43 gas lamps along Main Street. The company manufactured gas locally using asphalt and later petroleum products.

These early lamps required manual operation. Each evening a lamplighter traveled the streets igniting the lamps one by one, and returned at dawn to extinguish them.

Although primitive by modern standards, the introduction of gas lighting helped extend business activity into the evening and made nighttime travel safer.

Historical Notes

At the time this photograph was taken Los Angeles had fewer than 10,000 residents. Even so, city leaders considered street lighting an important civic improvement.

Operating the system was expensive. In January 1870 the city paid $415 for a month's supply of gas, equivalent to roughly $9,300 today.

Historical Notes

Street conditions during this period were still largely rural. Many roads were unpaved and poorly drained.

Despite these conditions, gas lamps provided a visible symbol of modernization. By 1873 approximately 136 gas lamps were lighting the streets of Los Angeles.

Historical Notes

Gas lighting dominated Los Angeles streets throughout the 1870s. However, a revolutionary new technology was about to challenge the system.

In 1879 Thomas Edison introduced a practical electric lighting system. Within only a few years Los Angeles would begin experimenting with electric street lighting.

The Bella Union Hotel, seen here, was considered the first hotel in Los Angeles. It became the Clarendon Hotel in 1873 and the St. Charles Hotel in 1875.

LA's First Electric Street Lights

The Era of the 150-Foot Light Masts (1882 to the 1890s)

Electric street lighting arrived in Los Angeles in 1882 and immediately transformed the city’s nighttime landscape. Instead of small lamps placed along sidewalks, engineers initially believed that powerful arc lights mounted on extremely tall poles could illuminate entire districts. These towering “light masts,” some reaching 150 feet in height, became one of the most distinctive features of Los Angeles during the 1880s and early 1890s.

Historical Notes

In 1882 C. L. Howland installed seven electric lighting masts in downtown Los Angeles. Each tower carried three carbon arc lamps rated at approximately 3,000 candlepower.

To power the lights, Howland also built a small generating plant. The following year he and several investors formed the Los Angeles Electric Company, the first electric utility in the city.

Click HERE to see more in First Electricity in Los Angeles.

Historical Notes

Maintenance of these towers required workers to climb the pole to reach the arc lamps. The small platform visible in many photographs served as a service point for adjusting and replacing the carbon electrodes used by the lamps.

Between 1882 and about 1885 roughly 30 of these tall lighting towers were installed throughout downtown Los Angeles.

Historical Notes

From elevated viewpoints the massive light masts were highly visible landmarks. Their height allowed arc lamps to cast light over large sections of the surrounding district.

Historical Notes

By the late 1880s electric lighting had become a symbol of civic progress. The tall towers often appeared in photographs of public events, celebrations, and parades.

Historical Notes

Electric lighting spread quickly beyond the downtown district. One of the earliest installations outside the city center was placed at First Street and Boyle Avenue on New Year's Eve of 1882.

Additional mast lights soon appeared throughout East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights.

Historical Notes

Developers frequently highlighted electric lighting in promotional materials. The presence of modern infrastructure made new subdivisions more attractive to potential buyers.

Historical Notes

During the 1880s Los Angeles installed more than 240 of these electric light masts across the city. Their bright arc lamps were often described as producing illumination comparable to the light of a full moon.

Historical Notes

Although visually dramatic, the mast lighting system proved difficult to maintain and expensive to operate. Over time engineers shifted toward shorter poles placed more frequently along city streets.

Historical Notes

The presence of electric lighting in parks and residential districts reflected the rapid expansion of Los Angeles during the 1880s and 1890s.

Historical Notes

Westlake Park quickly became one of the city’s most popular public spaces, and electric lighting helped make the area usable after sunset.

Historical Notes

By the end of the nineteenth century the mast lighting system was gradually being replaced by improved lighting technology that relied on shorter poles and more efficient electrical systems.

Historical Notes

The enormous mast lights were eventually phased out as engineers developed more reliable and economical street lighting designs.

The evolution from gas lamps to arc-light towers and finally to modern streetlights reflects the rapid technological transformation of Los Angeles during the late nineteenth century.

Historical Notes

The towering electric light masts installed in Los Angeles during the early 1880s were among the most dramatic urban lighting experiments of the nineteenth century. Engineers believed that extremely powerful arc lamps mounted high above the street could illuminate large areas of the city from only a few locations.

Although visually impressive, the system proved difficult to maintain and expensive to operate. Over time cities moved toward more practical lighting systems using shorter poles placed more frequently along streets and intersections.

Modern high-mast lighting, like the example shown in Woodland Hills, reflects a refined version of the original concept. While still elevated to spread light across a wide area, these systems use more efficient lamps, improved electrical controls, and engineered maintenance platforms.

In a sense, Los Angeles has come full circle. The towering lights that once illuminated the city in the 1880s have evolved into the high-mast lighting systems used today along major roads, rail yards, and large public spaces.

Article from LADWP's Historic Archives

“Los Angeles City is famed not only for its climate and for its oranges, but its electric light comes in as its crowning glory . . . "

This glowing eulogy depicts the enthusiasm 130 years ago when on December 30, 1882 the first streetlights were turned on in Los Angeles, illuminating the way to a pioneering age of growth and development for the expanding metropolis.

There had been a time in Los Angeles, a century ago, when a scattering of dimly lit gas lanterns, hanging from an occasional front porch, were the only traces of light on the otherwise darkened city streets. By law, early residents and business owners in the small pueblo of 12,000 were required to hang a lamp outside their doorway for the first two and one half hours of every dark night, or face a penalty of $2 for the first offense and $5 for each subsequent offense.

It was a vexing time for early Angelinos who could rarely leave their homes at night without stumbling about in the dark, toting candle-burning lanterns to find their way. A rumbling began among the citizenry for universal night lighting. The need for city dwellers to be able to find their way home, to have protection from crime, and to have greater illumination for stores and properties at night created fervor of support.

The interest was intensified in 1882 when Thomas Edison put his Pearl Street Station – the first commercial central station in the world – in operation on September 4 in New York. This was the start of the electric industry as it is known today.

The Edison plant supplied its light through incandescent lamps. A similar kind of lighting, in an improved form, was proposed for Los Angeles by C. L. Howland, representing the California Electric Light Company. While numerous proposals had been made, on September 11, 1882 the City Council unanimously voted to enter into a contract with Howland to “illuminate the streets of the city with electric light.”

At the time, it was a revolutionary idea. The proposal called for Howland, at his own expense, to erect seven, 150-foot-high masts each carrying three electric lights or lamps of three thousand candle-power. The masts were to be located in the heart of the city and its settle suburbs “which would be thoroughly and satisfactorily illuminated.”

Howland set quickly to work. He had received a deadline of December 1, 1882 to have the masts erected and electricity on. By October 25, he had purchased a lot on the corner of Alameda and Banning Streets where he proceeded to erect a brick building, 50 by 80 feet, to house the boilers, engines and the 30kw, 9.6 ampere “Brush” arc lighting equipment for supplying the electric energy. Three weeks later, by November 16, the masts were in place and soon afterwards the pole lines and wires were strung along the streets leading to the masts.

By December the only hold-up was the delayed arrival of the dynamo and lamps. In growing anticipation, the citizens anxiously awaited the moment in history when the first streetlights would illuminate the night skies of Los Angeles. That moment came on December 30, 1882 before an admiring crowd of spectators. Mayor Toberman threw a switch at twenty minutes past eight, simultaneously lighting two mast tops, one at Main and Commercial and the other at First and Hill.

An account in the Express newspaper at the time, recounted the historic event in this way: “The Main Street light burned steadily and beautifully and it cast a light similar to that of the full moon on snow. The First Street light was very unsteady, glowing at times with brilliancy and again almost fading from sight. The only complaint so far is from young couples who find no shady spots on the way home from church or theatre.”

By the following evening, five more masts were lighted on First Street and Boyle Avenue; Avenue 22 and North Broadway; First Street and Central Avenue; Fourth Street and Grand Avenue; and Sixth and Main Streets.

The project was considered so successful that before the expiration of Holland’s two year contract, he and others had formed the Los Angeles Electric Company, which besides serving streetlights, supplied arc lights for commercial establishments.

From these early beginnings, engineers over the years have worked to improve lighting technology. In May 1905, the first ornamental post system in the city was introduced on Broadway between First and Main Streets. This installation consisted of 135 posts each equipped with six small glass globes, enclosing 16 candle-power amp, and one large glass globe, enclosing a 32 candle-power lamp. This system operated until 1919 when it was demolished to make way for a more modern system.

The progress of street lighting in the years hence has been truly phenomenal. The present electric system of the DWP is a far cry from the pioneer service of the Los Angeles Electric Company in 1883. Yet, this pioneering system paved the way for today’s sophisticated electric system, which like its predecessor still “illuminates the streets of the city with electric light." **

Historical Notes

"Utilitarian" Streetlights are lamps attached to an overhead wire or to a power pole.

Historical Notes

Top photo shows the State Normal School sitting atop the last knoll of Bunker Hill, aptly dubbed "Normal Hill." In the mid-1920s the school would be demolished, Normal Hill would be leveled, 5th street would be extented through to Grand Avenue, and the LA Central Library would be constructed where the old school once stood.

Historical Notes

"Utilitarian" Streetlights are lamps attached to an overhead wire or to a power pole.

(Early 1930s)* - New street light being pulled up for installation.

(1933)* - L. G. Gould with a new and an old incandescent lamp at 30th and Trinity Streets.

Historical Notes

This marked the close of another era in the development of Los Angeles. The last arc light in the City was removed November, 1933 by L. G. Gould's street lighting section and replaced with a modern incandescent lamp.*

Historical Notes

Early Utilitarian Streetlights were served through two types of circuits - multiple and series. The multiple circuits are the same as ordinarily used in house lighting and employ a constant voltage of 120 volts, two wire or 120/240 volts, three wire. In the series circuits, the lamps were connected in series and the same current passed through all lamps. The current was maintained at a constant value and each circuit was individually regulated by a constant current regulating transformer. The voltage of the circuit at the supply point was equal to the sum of the voltages across each lamp pluse the line drop.

Utiltarian Lights still exist today, however, they are all served by 120/240 volts wire.

Click HERE to see the 1947 DWP Streetlight Manual.

Early Streetlight Electroliers

In the early years of the twentieth century, Los Angeles began to change the way its streets were lit. Earlier systems relied on tall arc lights that cast a harsh and uneven glow from high above the street. These lights were effective but did little to support the growing commercial life at street level. As the city expanded, a new approach to lighting was introduced that focused on both function and appearance.

This new system used ornamental streetlights known as electroliers. These were free standing lamps placed along the curb at regular intervals. They were lower in height, closer together, and designed to provide a more even spread of light across sidewalks and storefronts. Their decorative forms also added a sense of order and elegance to the street, helping to define the look of a modern city.

The most striking example of this new lighting system appeared on Broadway, where a series of seven-globe electroliers transformed the street into one of the brightest and most recognizable corridors in Los Angeles. These lights improved visibility while helping create a lively nighttime environment that supported theaters, shops, and public life.

Broadway and the Seven-Globe Electrolier

In May 1905, Los Angeles introduced its first large scale ornamental lighting system along Broadway. The project was financed by the Broadway Boulevard Improvement Association, a group of local business owners who wanted to make the street more attractive and inviting after dark. A total of 135 cast iron electroliers were installed, creating a continuous line of light along the city’s main commercial corridor.

Each electrolier featured a distinctive arrangement of globes. Six smaller globes surrounded a larger central globe, forming a bright cluster that stood out both day and night. These fixtures were manufactured by the Llewellyn Iron Works, which produced several variations of electrolier designs for use throughout the city. The seven-globe version remained unique to Broadway, helping to establish its identity as the brightest street in downtown Los Angeles.

Historical Notes

In May 1905, the first ornamental post system in the city was introduced on Broadway between First and Main Streets. This installation consisted of 135 posts, each equipped with six small glass globes enclosing 16 candlepower lamps and one large globe enclosing a 32 candlepower lamp. The system created a continuous line of illumination that helped define the street after dark.

This project was financed by local business interests rather than the city itself, reflecting a time when private groups often led improvements to public space. The lighting system remained in operation until 1919, when it was removed and replaced with newer and more powerful equipment better suited to changing traffic and urban conditions.

Historical Notes

Even with multiple globes, the total light output of these electroliers was modest. The larger globe produced about 32 candlepower, while each smaller globe produced about 16 candlepower. This was far less than the output of earlier arc lights, which could reach several thousand candlepower.

Because of this lower output, the electroliers were placed closer together and mounted at a lower height. This arrangement provided more even lighting across the street and sidewalks, creating a softer and more usable nighttime environment that encouraged pedestrian activity.

Historical Notes

The Llewellyn Iron Works supplied many of the early electroliers used in Los Angeles. Their designs followed classical proportions, with a heavy base and a slender shaft rising to support the globes. This gave the fixtures both stability and visual appeal.

The seven-globe design could also include a decorative finial above the central globe, adding to its ornamental quality. These details helped the electroliers serve not only as lighting devices but also as elements of civic design that contributed to the character of the street.

Historical Notes

Following the success of the Broadway installation, similar electroliers began to appear on other downtown streets such as Hill, Main, and Spring. Most of these installations used five-globe designs rather than seven, allowing Broadway to retain its distinction as the brightest and most prominent corridor.

The spread of these lighting systems reflected the growing importance of coordinated urban design. Lighting was no longer seen as a simple utility but as a way to improve the appearance and function of the city’s commercial districts.

Historical Notes

The electroliers helped transform Broadway into a lively and active street after dark. Their placement along the curb brought light closer to pedestrians and storefronts, making the street feel safer and more inviting.

Scenes like this show a mix of transportation modes, including streetcars, early automobiles, and horse drawn wagons. The lighting system supported this activity by creating a shared and well lit environment that extended the hours of business and entertainment.

Historical Notes

Bullock's Department Store opened its Broadway location in 1907 and quickly became one of the anchors of the street's commercial district. Founded by John G. Bullock and Arthur Letts, the chain would go on to open its famous Wilshire Boulevard location in 1929, a building now used by Southwestern Law School. The Broadway store represented the kind of upscale retail that better lighting was partly designed to serve, since the electroliers made storefronts more visible and made shopping after dark more appealing.

The nighttime postcard view was a popular format in the early 1900s. Photographers went to some effort to capture the effect of electric lighting on city streets because it was still a novelty that people found worth commemorating. The seven-globe Llewellyn glowing against the dark street is as much the subject of the image as the street itself. The horse-drawn wagon beside it is a quiet reminder that the arrival of electric lighting and the shift away from horse-drawn transportation were happening at the same time, and for a while the old and the new shared the same curb.

Historical Notes

The Vogel Building, with its distinctive onion-shaped corner tower, was one of the more eye-catching commercial structures on Broadway in the early years of the century. Buildings with rounded corner towers and ornamental rooflines were common in this period, influenced by architectural styles that were popular in American commercial construction from the 1880s through the early 1900s. The Vogel Building's tower gave the intersection at Broadway and 7th Street a recognizable focal point, and the electroliers below marked the corner with light.

The placement of two full seven-globe fixtures at a single intersection, one on each corner, shows how seriously the Broadway Improvement Association took the lighting of its key corners. Intersections received extra attention because they were the points where foot traffic was heaviest, where shoppers paused, and where the character of the street was most visible to anyone approaching from a distance.

Historical Notes

This view of the same intersection from the opposite corner shows how completely the electroliers had become part of the street by 1910. The man standing beside the lamp treats it as a casual landmark, the way someone might lean against a wall or pause under an awning. In five years the fixtures had gone from a novelty that drew crowds to something so familiar that people stopped noticing them, which may be the best measure of how successfully they had become part of daily life.

Bullock's Department Store, visible across the intersection, was by this point one of the busiest retail destinations in downtown Los Angeles. It drew a steady flow of shoppers that kept the surrounding block among the most trafficked in the city. The electroliers in front of it served a practical purpose, extending shopping hours after dark by making the sidewalk in front of the store as bright and welcoming as it was in the afternoon.

Historical Notes

The Hyman Theatre was one of several performance venues on Broadway in the years before the street became dominated by movie palaces. Live theaters of this kind served the growing downtown population that arrived by streetcar from neighborhoods across the city. The business associations that funded the electrolier program understood that a well-lit street drew people in the evening, and that evening foot traffic kept the restaurants, theaters, and retail stores that gave Broadway its energy in business.

The two boys leaning on the lamp post in the foreground are an unguarded moment in a photograph that is otherwise focused on the theater marquee and the crowd. The casual posture, one boy leaning into the post with the globe cluster rising above him, captures something that formal civic photographs rarely show: that these new streetlights were not just admired from a distance but touched, leaned on, and lived with every day. For children growing up in downtown Los Angeles at this time, the seven-globe electrolier was simply part of the neighborhood.

Historical Notes

Tally's Theatre was one of the early movie venues on Broadway, part of a wave of theaters that began changing the street from a live performance corridor into a movie going destination around the time of the First World War. Thomas Tally had been a pioneer in Los Angeles film exhibition since the late 1890s, and his Broadway theater was among the better-known venues in the city during the period when movies were becoming the dominant popular entertainment. By 1915, when this photograph was taken, the electroliers had been in place for ten years and were a settled part of the street's character.

The photograph shows the 800 block with the lamps burning along both curbs, their globes glowing steadily against the theater fronts. Four years later the original seven-globe system would be removed and replaced with more modern fixtures, and Broadway's era as a street defined by Llewellyn electroliers would come to a close. But for the decade from 1905 to 1915, the sight of two long parallel rows of softly glowing globes stretching north and south as far as the eye could follow was one of the defining images of downtown Los Angeles after dark.

The Legacy of the Electrolier

The seven-globe electroliers of Broadway represented a shift in how Los Angeles approached public infrastructure. They showed that street lighting could do more than illuminate the roadway. It could shape how people experienced the city and how they moved through it after dark. Along Broadway, the new system helped transform a busy commercial street into a destination, where theaters, shops, and public life extended well into the evening hours.

Although these early systems were eventually replaced by more powerful and efficient lighting, their influence did not end with Broadway. The ideas introduced here spread quickly to nearby streets and districts, where five-globe electroliers carried the same sense of order and design into the broader downtown. In that way, Broadway served as both a showcase and a starting point for a citywide transformation in how Los Angeles lit and presented its streets.

Five-Globe "Winslow" Llewellyn Electrolier

While Broadway held its place as the most brightly lit street in Los Angeles, the surrounding downtown blocks were not left behind. After Broadway received its seven globe fixtures, Hill, Main, and Spring Streets were fitted with Llewellyn electroliers of their own, using five-globes rather than seven. The five-globe arrangement was slightly less showy than the Broadway version but no less elegant, and it quickly became the standard for the city's major commercial corridors through the first two decades of the twentieth century.

Among the five-globe designs, one stood apart for its finer detail. The Llewellyn Winslow model, found primarily along Hill Street and on the short blocks surrounding Pershing Square, featured a more carefully worked shaft and base than the standard fixtures installed elsewhere. Its five-globes were arranged in the same basic cluster pattern as the common model, but the ornamental details of the post itself were of a higher quality, suited to the civic and cultural character of the district it served. Today a small number of these poles survive, no longer functioning as streetlights but kept as decorative features in the gardens and open spaces adjacent to City Hall, where they remain among the few physical reminders of the electrolier era in Los Angeles.

Historical Notes

Five-globe Llewellyn electroliers were the standard street lighting for most of downtown Los Angeles in the early 1900s, with Broadway alone reserved for the grander seven globe version. The Winslow model shown here was the most ornate of the five-globe designs, and its use was limited to Hill Street and the short connecting blocks around Pershing Square. The district these lights served was among the most formal in the city, home to banks, law offices, private clubs, and the park itself, and the Winslow's more detailed post design matched the character of its surroundings.

Pershing Square, the open park visible at the left of this photograph, had been a public space since 1866, when it was set aside as a plaza. It was renamed in 1918 to honor General John J. Pershing after the end of the First World War. In the years when the Winslow electroliers lined its perimeter, the square was a gathering place for downtown workers, residents, and visitors. The row of ornamental lights along Hill Street gave the approach to the park a formal, welcoming quality that suited its role as one of the social centers of downtown life.

Historical Notes

This close-up gives a clear picture of what set the Winslow apart from the standard five-globe electrolier. The shaft is more heavily detailed, with ornamental work running from the base upward, and the top section from which the globe arms extend is more carefully finished. The globes themselves are the same spherical form used on all the Llewellyn designs, but the post that supports them has a presence and quality that would have been immediately apparent to anyone walking along Hill Street.

The Llewellyn Iron Works was well equipped to produce work of this quality. The company had been supplying ornamental ironwork to Los Angeles since the 1880s, and by the time the Winslow was produced it had years of experience with fine casting work. The result was a fixture that worked as a streetlight but also read, in the context of the Hill Street corridor, as a piece of craftsmanship that the city could take pride in.

Historical Notes

The placement of a Winslow electrolier in front of a fire station rather than a bank or courthouse is a reminder of how broadly this model was used along Hill Street, not just at the most prestigious addresses but along the full length of the corridor. Engine Co. No. 3 was one of the busiest stations in downtown Los Angeles during this period, serving a dense district of commercial buildings, hotels, and residences. The three-horse-drawn steam pumper visible in front of the station was the standard firefighting equipment of the era, capable of drawing water from a hydrant and pumping it at high pressure, but requiring the horses to be kept at the station around the clock, ready to go at a moment's notice.

The Locke Hotel visible in the background was a substantial Victorian-era building that occupied a commanding spot at the top of the rise at 2nd and Hill. Buildings of its type defined the Hill Street skyline in the years before the larger commercial structures of the 1910s and 1920s replaced them. The electrolier in the foreground, the working fire station behind it, and the hotel on the hill above together capture several layers of the city's early twentieth century life in a single frame.

Historical Notes

Clune's Auditorium, visible across the street in this photograph, opened in 1906 as one of the largest performance venues in Los Angeles and was later remodeled and renamed the Philharmonic Auditorium, a name it kept until its demolition in 1985. During the years when the Winslow electroliers lined the surrounding blocks, the auditorium was the center of serious musical and theatrical life in the city, hosting opera companies, symphony performances, and major public events. The combination of the formal park, the auditorium, and the ornamental lighting gave this corner of downtown a cultural weight that set it apart from the more commercial blocks to the south.

By 1914, when this photograph was taken, the Winslow fixtures had been in place for several years and were already a settled part of the district's character. The horse-drawn carriage at the curb and the streetcar in the road reflect the mix of transportation still in use just before the automobile fully took over. Within a decade, newer dual lamp electroliers powered by improved bulbs would begin replacing the Winslow fixtures, and their era would draw to a close. That a handful of these poles survive today, kept as decorative features near City Hall, is a fitting tribute to one of the most carefully made fixtures the Llewellyn foundry ever produced.

Click HERE to see more five-globe Llewellyn 'Winslow' Electroliers

Five-Globe Standard Llewellyn Electroliers

Beyond the Winslow corridor around Pershing Square, the five-globe standard Llewellyn electrolier became the most common streetlight in Los Angeles and eventually spread outward into commercial districts all across the city. After Broadway was lit with its seven-globe fixtures, the five-globe standard model followed the growth of the city, appearing on Hollywood Boulevard, along Pico, on the blocks surrounding major civic buildings, and in the newly built communities of the San Fernando Valley. The Llewellyn Iron Works became so closely identified with this style of streetlight that any multi-globe electrolier in Los Angeles came to be called a Llewellyn, regardless of who actually made it.

The standard model shared the same basic look as its more elaborate cousins: a heavy cast iron base, a shaft tapering upward, and a top section supporting five arms, each ending in a spherical globe. It was a design that worked equally well in front of a courthouse, a department store, a cathedral, or a fire station, and that flexibility explains how thoroughly it came to define the look of a Los Angeles street in the years between 1905 and the mid 1920s, when newer dual lamp electroliers began replacing them in the downtown core. In the years before the city took over responsibility for street lighting in 1916, the standard Llewellyn was spread by private business associations and neighborhood lighting districts that paid for the fixtures and the power themselves, block by block, across a rapidly growing city.

Historical Notes

This photograph was taken the same year that Broadway received its seven-globe electroliers, and it shows Main Street already equipped with the five-globe standard model, confirming that the spread from Broadway to neighboring commercial streets happened quickly. Main Street in 1905 was one of the busiest corridors in the city, lined with savings banks, commercial buildings, and retail shops that depended on foot traffic and an inviting street after dark. The electroliers lining both curbs gave the block a visual order and a sense of welcome that the old arc lamp towers, set far apart and mounted high above the street, had never provided.

The Llewellyn Iron Works was founded in 1886 by brothers Reese, David, William, and John Llewellyn, originally from Wales, and grew into one of the largest metalworking facilities in Los Angeles. The company supplied cast iron and steel for a wide range of city infrastructure, from water mains and pipe fittings to structural steel for major downtown buildings. The street lighting work became its most visible contribution to daily life in the city, and the five-globe standard fixture was the product that carried its name across Los Angeles for nearly two decades.

Historical Notes

Spring Street in 1908 was already becoming the financial center of Los Angeles, lined with bank buildings and office towers that would earn it the nickname "the Wall Street of the West" in the years ahead. The five-globe Llewellyn electroliers that lit its sidewalks suited the street's ambitions, providing the kind of clean, well-maintained public environment that serious business districts expected. The horse-drawn wagon parked at the curb is a reminder that in 1908 the automobile had not yet replaced the working horse on the downtown streets, and that the new electric streetlights served teamsters and delivery men working after dark just as much as they served the bankers and lawyers heading home in the evening.

The same photograph was also produced in a colorized version by Richard Holoff, which gives a clearer sense of the warm amber tone the globes cast onto the pavement and building facades. The coloring process, applied to photographs of this era, often reveals details of texture and material that black and white printing flattens, and in this case it helps show how different the soft incandescent glow of the Llewellyn globes was from the harsher white light of the arc lamps that came before them.

Historical Notes

This colorized version of the same Spring Street view offers a better sense of how the five-globe Llewellyn electroliers may have appeared after dark, with their warm incandescent glow falling on the street, wagon, and surrounding buildings. While colorization is interpretive, it helps modern viewers imagine the atmosphere these early streetlights created in downtown Los Angeles.

Historical Notes

Corner placements like this one were a standard part of the Llewellyn installation pattern, with full five-globe fixtures at each corner of a major intersection and additional posts lining the curbs in between. The doubling of lights at corners served a practical purpose, since intersections were the points of heaviest foot traffic and the places where shoppers and commuters paused, crossed, or changed direction. But the effect was also visual, giving each intersection a more formal look that set it apart from the stretch of single fixtures running along the midblock.

The Wilson Building visible on the southeast corner was one of the commercial structures that defined this stretch of Spring Street before the larger bank buildings of the 1910s and 1920s arrived. Buildings of this type, with their ornamental cornices, corner towers, and detailed facades, were designed to be seen from the sidewalk, and the electroliers in front of them reinforced that by marking the block at the same level as the storefronts and entries. The combination of ornamental ironwork and ornamental architecture gave early downtown Los Angeles a consistent streetscape that the city's rapid growth would not always manage to preserve.

Historical Notes

By 1919, when this photograph was taken, the five-globe Llewellyn electrolier was reaching the end of its run in the downtown core. Newer dual lamp electroliers powered by improved bulbs were beginning to appear on the major commercial streets, offering stronger and more reliable light. The standard five-globe model would continue in service for years on neighborhood and secondary streets where the newer fixtures had not yet arrived, but its time at the center of downtown Los Angeles was drawing to a close.

The Foy household noted in the caption has a genuine place in city history. Mary E. Foy became City Librarian in 1880, making her the first woman to hold that position in Los Angeles. The modest house visible behind the gas station is a reminder that the blocks around what is now the interchange of the Harbor and Santa Monica freeways were, less than a century ago, a quiet residential neighborhood where notable figures in city life kept ordinary home addresses.

Historical Notes

This view of Spring Street looking south shows the electroliers at the height of their presence on the financial district's main corridor. By 1920 the street was lined with some of the most substantial commercial buildings in the city, and the Llewellyn posts running along both curbs gave the block the look of a proper urban street, where the public space and the architecture were working together. Within a few years the newer dual lamp electroliers would begin appearing at intersections, and the process of replacing the five-globe standard fixtures would pick up speed through the mid 1920s.

The reputation of Spring Street as Los Angeles's financial center had been building since the 1880s, and by 1920 it was home to the headquarters or branch offices of most of the major banks doing business in Southern California. The electroliers that lit the sidewalk in front of these buildings served a clientele that expected the public spaces of their district to reflect the confidence and order of the institutions behind the facades, and the well-maintained Llewellyn fixtures delivered that impression reliably, year after year.

Historical Notes

The Federal Building and Post Office at Temple and Main was one of the most important civic structures in early Los Angeles, serving as the primary point of contact between the federal government and a fast-growing city. Federal buildings of this period were designed to project authority and permanence, and the cluster of five-globe Llewellyn electroliers surrounding this one reinforced that impression, giving the building a well-lit setting that marked it off from the ordinary commercial streetscape around it.

The density of electroliers visible in this photograph, with fixtures at every corner and at close intervals along each curb, reflects the pattern the city used for its most important civic addresses. The post office in particular needed good lighting because people came and went during evening hours to collect mail and conduct postal business after the working day had ended. The Llewellyn fixtures made that after-dark activity comfortable and safe, extending the effective hours of the building's public service in a way that the earlier arc lamp towers had never managed at street level.

Historical Notes

This photograph captures one of the most historic corners of downtown Los Angeles at a moment when nearly everything in the frame was approaching the end of its useful life. The Temple Block on the left was one of the oldest surviving commercial buildings in the city at this point, and the Hall of Records, the International Bank Building, the Sandstone Courthouse, and the Federal Post Office that fill out the view would all eventually be torn down as the civic center was rebuilt in the decades ahead. Not a single building in this photograph survived.

The five-globe electroliers visible throughout the scene are perhaps the most honest measure of the moment. They are the standard Llewellyn fixtures that had served the area for nearly two decades, already somewhat out of date by 1924 as newer dual lamp designs began appearing on the major downtown streets. They would remain in place for years longer on secondary corridors like these, outlasting most of the buildings they once lit. The photograph preserves a block that no longer exists, lit by fixtures that are nearly as rare today, and together they give an unusually complete picture of a part of downtown that has been almost entirely remade.

Historical Notes

Saint Vibiana's Cathedral, completed in 1876, was the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the most prominent church building in the city for more than a century. Its Spanish Baroque facade, modeled loosely on a church in Barcelona, presented a formal and carefully composed face to Main Street, and the Llewellyn electrolier standing before it matched the building's character with its own ornamental presence. The pairing of a fine cast iron street fixture and a historic religious building was not unusual in this period. The lighting plan for downtown made no distinction between secular and religious addresses.

The cathedral's long relationship with the city came to a complicated end in 1994, when the Northridge earthquake caused significant structural damage. After years of debate, the Archdiocese sold the building to the city's Community Redevelopment Agency in 2005, and it was eventually restored and reopened as Vibiana, an event and performing arts venue. The electrolier that once stood before its doors is long gone, but the building itself survives, one of the few structures from the era of the Llewellyn streetlights that still stands on its original downtown corner.

Historical Notes

The presence of five-globe Llewellyn electroliers on Hollywood Boulevard in 1922 shows how far the standard downtown lighting model had traveled in the nearly two decades since Broadway first received its seven-globe fixtures. Hollywood had been annexed by the city in 1910, and its main commercial street had received ornamental lighting as part of the broader effort to give the boulevard the character expected of a major Los Angeles thoroughfare. The Masonic Temple, a substantial building that anchored this stretch of the boulevard, was one of the more prominent civic structures in the neighborhood, and the pair of electroliers in front of it marked the entrance with the same formal gesture that similar fixtures provided at important addresses throughout downtown.

By 1922 Hollywood Boulevard was well on its way to becoming one of the most recognized streets in the world, driven by the growth of the film industry in the surrounding area. The electroliers that lit its sidewalks during this period were the same standard Llewellyn model that served Main Street and Spring Street downtown, a reminder that before the boulevard acquired its own identity it was simply a commercial street in a city that extended the same public amenities to all its neighborhoods.

Historical Notes

This photograph is one of the clearest illustrations of the visual difference between the two types of five-globe electroliers used in downtown Los Angeles. The standard five-globe posts in front of the Pantages Theatre entrance are the common model found throughout the city, while the Winslow fixture visible on Hill Street to the right is immediately distinguishable by the more elaborate detail of its shaft and base. The two types stood within a few feet of each other here, and the difference between them is plain even at a glance.

The Pantages Theatre at 7th and Hill was one of the top vaudeville and entertainment venues in Los Angeles during this period, part of the Alexander Pantages circuit that operated theaters across the country. Irene Rich, whose name appears on the marquee, was a popular silent film actress of the 1920s who made numerous pictures at studios in the Los Angeles area. The mix of live performance and early cinema that theaters like this one offered made them central gathering places in the evening life of downtown, and the electroliers in front of them served the crowds that made those evenings possible.

Historical Notes

The Old Plaza Church, formally known as Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles, is the oldest surviving church building in Los Angeles, with a congregation that traces its history to the founding of the city in 1781. By the time this photograph was taken in the 1930s, the church had been part of the downtown landscape for well over a century, and the five-globe Llewellyn electrolier standing in front of its entrance had been there for at least two decades. The pairing of a modern civic fixture with one of the city's oldest buildings captures something about downtown Los Angeles in this era: the public infrastructure of the early twentieth century sitting comfortably alongside a much older urban fabric, with the two sharing the same street corner without ceremony.

By the 1930s the standard five-globe Llewellyn was genuinely old technology, and most of the major downtown streets had already converted to newer dual lamp designs. The fact that one still stood in front of the Plaza Church at this late date shows how slowly the city updated its secondary and historic streets. It also speaks to the durability of the Llewellyn product. Fixtures installed before the First World War were still in service twenty years later, a testament to the quality of the casting that came out of the Llewellyn foundry at its best.

Historical Notes

This 1937 view is one of the later photographs showing a five-globe standard Llewellyn still in service as a working streetlight in its original location, and the setting shows how long the standard fixture remained in use on secondary streets well south of the downtown core. The Streamline Moderne facade of the De Vanos restaurant immediately behind the light post reflects a design style that was thoroughly up-to-date in the late 1930s, while the electrolier in the foreground belonged to a generation three decades earlier. The two objects sharing the same corner is a good example of how cities actually look when development is uneven and infrastructure is replaced on a practical schedule rather than all at once.

The Bendix Building visible in the distance was a well-known commercial structure in this part of Los Angeles, and St. Joseph Catholic Church, with its Gothic Revival tower, provided a vertical landmark that could be seen from several blocks away. The electrolier in the foreground anchored the near corner as Llewellyn fixtures had been doing across the city since 1905. Within a decade or so of this photograph, the last of these posts would be removed from service on the streets of downtown Los Angeles, closing out a run of more than thirty years during which they had helped shape the look and the nighttime experience of a rapidly growing city.

The Electrolier Era in Los Angeles

The electrolier era in Los Angeles was relatively brief, but its impact was lasting. From the seven-globe installations on Broadway to the five-globe Llewellyns that spread across downtown and into surrounding neighborhoods, these streetlights helped define the look and feel of the city during a critical period of growth. They brought light down to the level of the sidewalk, where people lived, worked, and gathered, and in doing so they helped shape the rhythm of daily and evening life in early twentieth century Los Angeles.

By the 1920s and 1930s, newer lighting systems began to replace the multi-globe electroliers, better suited to faster traffic and changing urban needs. Yet the image of those earlier streets remains one of the most distinctive in the city’s history. Rows of softly glowing globes stretching along Broadway, Hill, and Spring created a kind of urban atmosphere that has never quite been repeated. Though most of the original fixtures are gone, their presence still lingers in historic photographs and in the few surviving posts that stand as reminders of a time when street lighting helped give Los Angeles its first true nighttime identity.

Streetlights of the San Fernando Valley

Historical Notes

The Van Nuys Highway Lighting District was organized August 10, 1912, under the California act providing for the highway lighting of unincorporated towns and villages and country sections.  The Van Nuys District, which is 16 miles long and 8 miles wide, embraces about 52,000 acres in the southwestern part of the San Fernando Valley (at the time).

The votes creating the district came from the new settlers.  Sixty votes were recorded for and eighteen against.  The small vote was due to the fact that the majority of people living in the tract came from other states and were not eligible to vote on account of not having been in California the required year.

The first lighting undertaken by the district was along Sherman Way, the 16 mile boulevard extending thru the tract. A sum of $75,000 was recommended for this purpose, which was included in the 1912 taxes of the district, and the entire amount was raised in that year.*

Historical Notes

This was the first Lighting District the County of Los Angeles created.  When completed the lighting system had 484 three-light posts (electroliers) and 129 five-light posts (electroliers).

Streetlight "Electroliers" are defined as free-standing streetlights generally on their own posts.

The town of Marian became Reseda and Owensmouth is now Canoga Park.

The above map shows the original route of Sherman Way, which today is west on Chandler, north on Van Nuys Blvd, and west on Sherman Way. The other sections of today's Van Nuys Blvd were known as South Sherman Way and North Sherman Way.

Historical Notes

In the three townsites of Van Nuys, Marian, and Owensmouth, five-light clusters were used thru the main parts, four electroliers to every street intersection.  On these five-light posts, one 60-watt lamp was upright and four 40-watt lamps pendant, and they were placed through the main parts of the towns, four electroliers to every street intersection.*

The most common of the incandescent multiple globe electroliers of the early 1900s were those manufactured by the Llewellyn Iron Works of Los Angeles.  The firm became so identified with this style of street light that any multiple globe electrolier became commonly known as a Llewellyn.  The Llewellyn Iron Works, founded in 1889‐1890, was one of the largest metal working facilities in Los Angeles.  It manufactured structural steel – including that for the Bradbury Building.^

Historical Notes

Cast-iron electroliers (made by Llewellyn Iron Works of Los Angeles) were used with three-light clusters for use along the boulevard outside the townsites, one 60-watt lamp upright and two 40-watt lamps pendant.  The electroliers were located 330 feet apart staggered, or 660 feet apart on each side of the boulevard, which is about 100 feet wide.*

These same type of streetlight electroliers can be found today on Carroll Avenue.

Historical Notes

Sherman Way became the first paved boulevard across the valley. Following this was the paving of the state highway aka the Ventura Road, from the Cahuenga Pass to Newbury Park. Eventually, the road ran all the way to Ventura, and was renamed Ventura Boulevard.

Historical Notes

The most common of the incandescent multiple globe electroliers of the early 1900s were those manufactured by the Llewellyn Iron Works of Los Angeles.  The firm became so identified with this style of street light that any multiple globe electrolier became commonly known as a Llewellyn.  The Llewellyn Iron Works, founded in 1889‐1890, was one of the largest metal working facilities in Los Angeles.  It manufactured structural steel – including that for the Bradbury Building.^

Historical Notes

Called Llewellyn “Chester” lamps, these six-globe streetlights were installed in the West Adams district beginning in 1903 (Named for Chester Place, one of the first gated communities in Los Angeles).

Historical Notes

The "Chesters" can still be found along Chester Place, now a private street bisecting the campus of Mount St. Mary's College. But only the tops of the survivors match the catalog image seen in previous photo. The shafts and bases are different.

LADWP Historical Archive

(1973) Despite the variety of designs, street lights are known as either electrolier or utilitarian types, according to Harvard Johnson, engineer in charge of Street Light Design. Customers own the electroliers --- lamps affixed to concrete or metal posts. The customer-owners of these are most likely the Department of Public Works or residents who form a private street lighting district.

The DWP owns the utilitarian lights. These are temporary lamps attached to wooden poles. Other agencies and lighting districts will eventually replace this type with the more modern electrolier systems. With both types, the DWP supplies the electrical energy, cleans the glassware, replaces lamps and glassware, and paints the electrolier posts. There are 191,000 electrolier standards and utilitarian lamps presently (1973) in the city.**

(Early 1920s)* - Electric-powered street light truck with platform fully extended.

Historical Notes

Replacing the five-globe Llewellyn in Downtown Los Angeles and extending outward along several major streets, hundreds of dual-lamp electroliers (UM 1906's) were installed in the mid 1920's.

The UM-1906 was manufactured by the Union Metal Company of Canton, Ohio. The company was founded in 1906 to produce ornamental porch columns and pergolas. By 1909 it began marketing ornamental street lighting, with its first major catalog of electroliers issued in 1915. Union Metal eventually supplied more than 4400 towns and cities with street lights. The UM-1906 is currently offered by the Bureau of Street Lighting as an option for roadway street lighting.*

One of the most significant variations of the UM-1906 dual-lamp streetlight was the UM-2502, which contained an extended center pole from which trolley wires could be suspended. Click HERE to see more.

Historical Notes

Many of these dual-lamp UM-1906's still exist today in select areas of Downtown L.A., although most are refurbished. Click HERE to see contemporary views of dual-lamp 1906's.

Historical Notes

To get cars and commerce moving through the downtown business district, Los Angeles installed its first automated traffic signals in October 1920 at five locations on Broadway. These early signals, manufactured by the Acme Traffic Signal Co., paired “Stop” and “Go” semaphore arms with small red and green lights. Bells played the role of today’s amber or yellow lights, ringing when the flags changed—a process that took five seconds. By 1923 the city had installed 31 Acme traffic control devices.*

Historical Notes

Manufactured by Keystone Iron & Steel Works of Los Angeles, the "Roses" were found mid-block, and the "Specials" were at the intersections.  When the shafts and luminaires were changed in 1948, the bases of both designs were left in place.  But, because the "Specials" were at the intersections, they were the most vulnerable to updates to the traffic light and intersection improvements.  So, all the "Special" bases eventually vanished, while the "Rose" bases are still quite plentiful. 

Historical Notes

Marked by three ornate ribbons of roses climbing up their safts, the eponymous Broadway Roses, designed by a General Electric engineer and originally installed in 1919, used to extend from Aliso Street to Pico Boulevard.  Given that Broadway was the first L.A. street to have ornamental lights, hailed in the papers as “the radiant way,” this lamp’s lavish design should come as no surprise.  (In fact, the Roses originally shared Broadway with an even grander, more filigreed type of post—the Spanish Renaissance-inspired Broadway Special, designed by the same engineer.)  The response was overwhelming:  “This is one of the most elaborate jobs of ornamental electroliers ever made on the coast,” the Los Angeles Times observed, “and is a 100 percent home product.”  Unfortunately, the excitement didn’t last.  During the 1950s, the shafts and luminaires of the Broadway Roses were replaced with more functional, higher intensity, yet decidedly more somber CD-913 overheads, leaving only the original bases intact.  Today there are only a handful of complete models remaining in Los Angeles, which can be found running down Sixth Street between Olvie and Flower Streets.  The Broadway Specials, incidentally, have vanished altogether.*

Historical Notes

The 'Specials' were placed at the intersections of Broadway, while the 'Roses' were located at mid-block.

Historical Notes

The new Spanish Renaissance-inspired “Broadway Specials” and their efflorescent siblings, the “Broadway Roses,” were praised by the Journal of Electricity as “a new note in street lighting.”

The Los Angeles Times hailed the installation as “one of the most elaborate jobs of ornamental electroliers ever made on the coast.” The Broadway Specials no longer exist, but the Broadway Roses still light up West Sixth Street between Olive and Flower Streets.*

Historical Notes

Los Angeles installed its first automated traffic signals in October 1920 at five locations on Broadway. These early signals, manufactured by the Acme Traffic Signal Co., paired "Stop" and "Go" semaphore arms with small red and green lights. Bells played the role of today's amber or yellow lights, ringing when the flags changed—a process that took five seconds. By 1923 the city had installed 31 Acme traffic control devices. ^*

Historical Notes

Llewellyn's 'Broadway' dual-lamp streetlight was last seen on 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles (see next photo).

Historical Notes

Special ornamentation was common on bridges constructed between 1900 - 1928.  These poles serve two purposes:   1) to hold the decorative streetlight lanterns and  2) to support the overhead for the Los Angeles Railway (LARy) streetcars that used the bridge.

Historical Notes

See More Bridge Lighting (College Street Bridge; First Street Bridge; Fourth Street Viaduct; Fourth and Lorena Streets Bridge; Glendale-Hyperion Bridge; Macy Street Bridge; Mulholland Bridge; Sixth Street Bridge; Washington Blvd Bridge)

Historical Notes

This five-globe streetlights were originally installed on all streets in Downtown Los Angeles in the early 1900s, (except for Broadway which had the seven-globe lights).  Today, the last of these poles are still being used as architectural features in the gardens and malls adjacent to City Hall.

Historical Notes

The story behind the White Dot located under the Hollywoodland Sign: In 1920-21, the US Chamber of Commerce produced maps illustrating business conditions in areas of the country. Those shaded black were poor, white with black stripes (grey) were fair and white was good.  Los Angeles was a “white spot” in a sea of black and grey on the map in the early 1920s. Los Angeles Times publisher, Harry Chandler adopted the catchprase, “White Spot Of America” as being a city free of crime, corruption and communism. Chandler, who was vehemently anti-union, was an influential proponent of developing a strong economic base in Los Angeles.  It wasn’t long before the phrase  “keep the white spot white” was being commonly used. The term “white spot” typically referred to LA”s relative prosperity and low unemployment, and was not intended to have racial overtones.  So, for Los Angeles, the term, “keep the white spot white” meant keep L.A. prosperous.

In late 1924, in order to demonstrate support for the “keep the white spot white”, campaign, Hollywoodland  erected a 35 foot diameter “white dot” on the hillside, several feet below the Hollywoodland sign. The cost to erect the dot was $936.16. Contrary to popular belief, the white dot was not illuminated.*

Click HERE to see more Early Views of 'Hollywoodland'.

Historical Notes

The "Western" was once found on Western Avenue as well as Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. There were also a few outliers along Sunset Boulevard.  None of the ‘Western’ posts survived. Its look-alike cousin, the Llewellyn “Washington”, can still be found in Downtown LA.

Historical Notes

This ornate five-globe streetlight was found on Pico Boulevard from Main Street on the East to Vermont Avenue on the West.

(1931)^x^ - View looking west on 8th Street toward Western Avenue showing dual-lamp electroliers running down both sides of the street.  Also seen are power lines and streetcar wire attached to the top of the streetlight posts above the lamps.

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