by clairmont chung Note lonely lamppost in the foreground (Circa 1871) A few years back, I was standing on the corner of Water and New Market Streets observing a man clad in rags removing a beautiful ornate cast iron post from its base. Until that day, I had hung on and around that post numerous times without consciously noticing its beauty. The man detached one post and was moving on a second when another man stopped him. I could not hear the conversation. But the result was the gas lamppost thief left the area and his booty behind. Gas lighting came to (British Guiana) Guyana in 1870. But according to The Gas World , November 5, 1892, Page 514, by 1891 most of the lighting had been turned over to the electric company. They used wooden posts. By December 1893 gas lighting operations would cease. So these metal posts had been abandoned for over a century. As it turns out, that forgotten part of Georgetown, Tiger Bay [1] , had benefitted from the first gas street ligh...
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