Let There Be Light!

For eons, humans have found ways to beat back the dark. First there were wood fires and torches, then came candles and oil lamps. The early European settlers of Humboldt County lit their buildings with lamps using whale or mineral oil – some from local whaling or the oil wells near Petrolia. Many town streets were lit with gas lights that were tended by dedicated lamp-lighters.

            Then came an amazing new technology – electricity!

            John Vance, owner of lumber mills and a grand hotel, was reputedly a great admirer of Thomas Edison and wanted to bring Humboldt into the electric age. In a much publicized ceremony on October 25, 1883, he had eight electric lights switched on, illuminating parts of Second Street, his mill and wharf. A large crowd was greatly impressed as was the Humboldt Times newspaper that enthusiastically reported the event, saying:

            “Last evening, about six o’clock, everything in readiness, the electric machine in Vance’s mill was started up, and immediately Second Street in the vicinity of the Vance House was lit up almost as bright as if Old Sol had not yet gone to rest below the horizon. The lights burned a little irregularly for a while, but with a little tinkering they were soon regulated. When they got down to business, they put to shame the lights in the windows of the various stores in that vicinity.”

            For years afterwards, the newspapers excitedly reported the gradual expansion of electric lighting as individual homes and stores bought into the system and other communities also established electric generating stations.

            But it still took a while for this new lighting source to be fully accepted. In an 1895 newspaper ad, the Eureka Lighting Company hedged its bets by advertising “electric light and gas supplies, lights installed on short notice, coke, coal and coal tar for sale.”

            A poster in the collection of the Humboldt County Historical Society shows that it took some time for the new system to be fully understood or trusted. “This room,” it states, “is equipped with the Edison Electric Light. Do not attempt to light with match. Simply turn key on wall by the door. The use of electricity for lighting is in no way harmful to health, nor does it affect the soundness of sleep.”

            Of course, most new technologies do take a while to gain – and sometimes lose – acceptance. In the 1960s, PG & E promoted the wonders of the new nuclear power plant it opened on Humboldt Bay, but the skepticism it met was perhaps better founded than the health fears generated by early electricity. Public awareness of the dangers of nuclear radiation, of other power plant malfunctions, and of such a facility being on an earthquake fault, led in a few years to the plant’s decommissioning.

            In Humboldt County as elsewhere, the introduction and effects of new technology has always been a part of our history Preserving and shedding light (forgive the pun) on that and all other aspects of local history, is the role of the Humboldt County Historical Society.