GOODS & SERVICES: Light from the Past

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GOODS & SERVICES

In the lighting industry the newest fad is the old gas lamp. The fad got going last year when Whitt Stephens, Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co. president and board chairman, offered to install gas lamps free for the entire city of Little Rock, Ark. as a stunt to publicize gas. The city could not legally accept, but Stephens had six gaslights put up near city hall. So many householders liked their soft glow that Stephens decided to mass-produce the lamps through the company's subsidiary, Arkla Air Conditioning Corp.

Mounted on a post and boxed in an old-fashioned lantern, the soft-glowing lamps have since appeared in thousands of backyards, garage fronts and gardens from Arkansas to Albuquerque. Arkla alone has sold 22,000 in six months, and this year the industry's total is expected to top 300,000. In North Little Rock, the CAA approved a private airport's plans to install gas lamps along its modern runways. In Amarillo, Texas, where gas is cheap, gas lamps have appeared along highways and byways. The lanes of a new residential development now under construction are being lit by gas. Nonglaring, the gaslights are not only more economical than electric lights, but have another decided advantage outdoors: they do not attract bugs because they do not glow.