![]() The towers were masts secured with cables and were maintained daily by crews who hauled themselves to the top using a counterweighted elevator. In 1993, the city of Austin dismantled the towers and restored every bolt, turnbuckle and guy-wire as part of a $1.3 million project, the completion of which was celebrated in 1995 with a citywide festival.ĭetroit In front of City Hall, Detroit, Michigan, about 1900ĭetroit, Michigan, had a particularly extensive system of light towers inaugurated in 1882 with 122 towers, 175 feet (53 m) tall and 1,000–1,200 feet (300–370 m) apart downtown, shorter, less powerful, and twice as far apart elsewhere. A single tower cast light from six carbon arc lamps, illuminating a 1,500-foot (460 m) radius brightly enough to read a watch. In 1894, the City of Austin purchased 31 used towers from Detroit. The towers were manufactured in Indiana by Fort Wayne Electric Company and assembled on site. They are 165 feet (50 m) tall with foundations 15 feet (4.6 m) wide. Main article: Moonlight towers (Austin, Texas)Īustin, Texas, is the only city in the world known to still have moonlight towers. Austin, Texas A moonlight tower in Austin, Texas (2009) Moonlight towers in Austin, Texas, near TxDOT headquarters, served as inspiration for some of the first high-mast lighting towers in the US in the 1960s and 1970s. As incandescent electric street lighting became common, the prevalence of towers began to wane. Arc lamps, known for their exceptionally bright and harsh light, were the most common method of illumination. The towers were designed to illuminate areas often of several blocks at once, on the "high light" principle. In other places they were used in addition to gas street lighting. ![]() In some places they were used when standard street-lighting, using smaller, shorter, and more numerous lamps, was impractically expensive. The towers were popular in the late 19th century in cities across the United States and Europe they were most common in the 1880s and 1890s. Structure, generally over 50 meters tall, for large-scale electric street lightingĪ moonlight tower or moontower is a lighting structure designed to illuminate areas of a town or city at night. ![]()
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