One of the world’s
strangest tourist attractions is a simple electric light bulb in a California
fire station – because it was first switched on in June 1901, and is still
burning today, nearly 113 years later.
Firemen at the Livermore Fire Department’s Station 6 on the
southern edge of the San Francisco Bay area welcome visitors to view and
photograph the 24hr 'night light', even having a sign saying that if the front
door is closed, to go around the back and bang on the door there to get their
attention.
And the local City Council has installed CCTV to monitor the
light, that’s been recognised by the Guinness Book of Records, Ripley’s
Believe-It-Or-Not and even in a citation from the President of the USA as the
world’s oldest-known working light bulb.
The bulb was installed in the original Livermore Fire Hose
Cart-house in 1901, briefly switched off when that station moved to another
site in 1903, and turned off for a week during renovations in 1937. It was
moved to its current location in 1976 and has only been off once since – when
power to the station failed for 9.5hrs in May last year.Its authenticity has been verified from newspaper records and by engineers from the General Electric Company.
Article supplied by guest writer David Ellis
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