Fort Worth Star-TelegramSeptember 21, 2008Bud Kennedy: Almost everything these
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Today is a day a century in the making, a celebration of both expert workmanship and bombastic showmanship. Today marks the 100th year of the most unlikely little tourist attraction in Fort Worth: a truly long-lasting light bulb. The former Palace Theater light bulb has burned almost nonstop since 1908, second to a California bulb as the longest-lasting light bulbs in history. Newspapers from the Los Angeles Times to The Wall Street Journal have written about the Palace Light: "The Light That Never Failed." By 1928, the year the Palace first showed a movie with sound, reporters were already calling it a "historic light." It had burned nonstop for two decades over a backstage door at a former downtown opera house. The next 80 years would carry the persistent bulb into Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and the Guinness Book of World Records, then out of the demolished movie theater to a private home and on to the Stockyards Museum, 131 E. Exchange Ave. That’s where well-wishers will gather today at 2:30 p.m. to blow out the candles. But not the light. Wired to a separate circuit since 1936 and kept on low power since it was removed from its original socket in 1977, the light has only gone dark maybe twice in 100 years. Once, in the 1930s, a Palace usher turned it off by mistake. It was dark again for moments when the last theater landlord, George Dato, connected it to a portable generator and moved it home for safekeeping. "Whenever somebody came over, they would ask, 'OK, where’s the light bulb?" Jeane Dato of Irving remembered Friday. A real estate agent, she and George had been married 53 years when he died March 2. Dato’s father worked at the old Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in the Stockyards. "He cherished that bulb and everything from the Palace," Jeane Dato said. "But he didn’t feel right keeping it. He wanted it to be someplace where it could be shared with all of Fort Worth." In 1991, invited by late Stockyards Museum curator Sue McCafferty, he carefully dimmed the bulb, drove it to Fort Worth and slowly restored it to somewhere near its original 4 watts, as manufactured by Shelby Electric of Shelby, Ohio. The late McCafferty was quoted as saying: "When it came time to turn it on, we all held our breath." But the light came on. The story of the little light has been kept as carefully as the bulb itself. The theater was built as the Byers Opera House before it became part of the Interstate Circuit movie theater chain. In an age when movies and theaters were front-page news, Star-Telegram movie critic Elston Brooks and Fort Worth Press columnist Jack Gordon faithfully retold the light’s story every Sept. 21. The employee who first installed the bulb, Barry Burke, went on to become a theater executive. He often said that he feared he would die if the light burned out. It has now outlasted him by 44 years.
Bud Kennedy |
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FORT WORTH They may not sing "Happy Birthday" to Cowtown’s famous light bulb. But cake and punch will be served at the party. Sunday marks the 100th birthday of the bulb that has burned almost continuously since electrician Barry Burke installed it on Sept. 21, 1908, above the backstage door at the Byers Opera House, which later became the Palace Theater in downtown Fort Worth. "Bless its heart, it doesn’t put out much light, but it’s still going," said Sarah Biles, administrator at the Stockyards Museum where the enduring artifact has been displayed since 1991. Wired to a low-voltage circuit, the carbon filament emits a faint orange glow. The oldest known working bulb, burning since 1901, hangs in a fire station in Livermore, Calif. The public is invited to attend the 2:30 p.m. celebration, sponsored by the North Fort Worth Historical Society, at the Livestock Exchange Building, 131 East Exchange Ave. in the Stockyards. David Casstevens |
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Fort Worth Star-Telegram A glowing achievement for By David Casstevens |
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©2008 North Fort Worth Historical Society |
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From the Press |
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Palace Light Bulb Centennial Party Pictures—2008 |
