The Cincinnati Street Gas Lamps are a
historic district
A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...
in
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
,
Ohio
Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
,
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. Composed of more than 1,100
street lamps scattered throughout the city, the district was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 1978.
Cincinnati's system of streetlights has been seen as historic because it is representative of the application of early- to mid-nineteenth-century technology to daily life. Prompted by a newly founded firm known as the "Cincinnati Gas Light and Coke Company," the city of Cincinnati began to implement streetlights in 1837.
[Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 1. St. Clair Shores: Somerset, 1999, 658.] An 1875 inventory counted 5290 public gas lamps connected by of mains and supply pipes.
Today, perhaps 1,172
gas lights are in place in thirteen of the city's neighborhoods, as well as in certain portions of
Columbia Township and
Sycamore Township.
Included in the historic district are 1,109 of these lights, the oldest of which date back to 1843.
See also
*
History of street lighting in the United States
References
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Historic districts in Cincinnati
National Register of Historic Places in Cincinnati
Street lighting
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio