Light’s Golden Jubilee in 1929

While Patent Number 223,898 was issued to Thomas A. Edison on January 27, 1880, the experiments done by Edison and his team in October of 1879 enabled the first practical commercial incandescent light bulb to become a reality. On October 21, 1929, Light’s Golden Jubilee was held in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Thomas A. Edison’s improvements to the incandescent light bulb.

Sandusky’s Division Manager of the Ohio Public Service Company, C. B. Wilcox, pictured above, announced in the July 23, 1929 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal, that Sandusky would pay tribute to the work of Thomas A. Edison by illuminating the fountain in Washington Park with a display of brightly colored lights. (This was before the Boy with the Boot made its home in Washington Park.) Employees of the Ohio Public Service Company were to install the special lighting display, which was to continue throughout the summer and fall months.

                            

A floral mound in the park also paid honor to Thomas A. Edison in 1929.

 

The Sandusky Star Journal of October 22, 1929 reported that hundreds of Sandusky residents sat at home by candle light or gas light, as they listened to the radio program in which Thomas A. Edison recreated his electric light over NBC Radio, at Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, where the Edison laboratory had been re-created. The reception during the program was exceptionally clear that October evening.

U.S. President and Mrs. Herbert Hoover as well as Henry Ford all took part in the Golden Jubilee of Light Celebration. Read more about Light’s Golden Jubilee at the websites of the Henry Ford Museum and the Library of Congress.