Business owners who in the mid-1970s wanted to attract more shoppers to downtown Denver trotted out a promotional gimmick first used in the late 19th century – colorful Christmas lights.
They added a new touch to an old theme by attaching the lights to floats and called the event the Parade of Lights.
But the event’s genesis came more than 90 years before that first parade.
“It was probably six years after (Thomas) Edison invented the light bulb that an associate of his, Edward Johnson, lit a tree for the first time electrically,” George Nelson said. “That was 1882. He did it as a publicity stunt. He did it in New York.”
Nelson, who lives in Knoxville, Tenn., has collected and researched Christmas lights for 25 years.
Another collector, Don Crandall of Gray, Maine, said people came from all over to see Johnson’s tree, which featured red, white and blue bulbs and stood on a revolving stand.
Yet the New York papers virtually ignored the stunt. “There was a reporter from the Detroit Post who did report on it,” Nelson said. “That’s why we know that it actually happened.”
The Parade of Lights, which winds downtown tonight and Saturday afternoon, began 31 years ago. It has never lacked spectators or media coverage.
More than 300,000 people are expected to take in the parades. KUSA-Channel 9 will broadcast tonight’s edition live from 8-9, then repeated from 6-7 p.m. Saturday.
Two of the city’s other favorite holiday happenings also use Christmas lights to draw visitors: the Denver Botanic Gardens’ Blossoms of Lights (Saturday-Jan. 22) and Zoo Lights at the Denver Zoo (Dec. 9-Jan. 1).
The tradition has grown from modest beginnings.
Early on, holiday lights were not readily available. It was impractical to use lights to decorate even a family tree.
“You had to hand-wire these lights on the Christmas tree,” Nelson said. “You would have to get a little porcelain socket and screw the bulb into the socket, and then wire the sockets together.”
Collector Crandall noted that few people could afford to buy Christmas lights in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The original, eight-bulb Edison sets came in wooden boxes and sold for $12.
“Well, $12 in 1900 was a month’s pay for a lot of people,” he said. “What Gimbel’s, Macy’s and all these guys did was they would rent the things out. So you could go there and rent a set of lights and bring it back at the end of the season.”
That year, 1900, also featured the first known advertisement for Christmas lights. General Electric ran it in Scientific American magazine to market the hand-wired lights for commercial use, Nelson said.
“The actual date is a little bit unclear as to when the first true set of light bulbs and sockets were sold,” he said. “I sort of tend to think it was 1904. That was offered, again, by General Electric.”
GE soon began marketing Christmas lights for home use.
Crandall said he has seen outdoor light sets that date to 1915.
That is of local interest because of a long-told tale that the first outdoor Christmas tree to be decorated with lights was in 1914 in Denver.
Legend has it that a local electrician used paint to color some regular light bulbs and strung them on a tree outside the bedroom window of his young dying son. The boy couldn’t get down the stairs to the parlor where the family tree stood.
“I’ve never heard that,” Crandall said.
But Nelson knows the story and for a time even had it up on his website, oldchristmaslights.com, which offers a detailed history of Christmas lights.
“There are a lot different urban legends about the first outdoor tree,” he said. “But I have not been able to find any true fact to substantiate any of them. I had some briefly on the website. But I just could not substantiate them at all, so I took them off.”
Regardless, there will be plenty of outdoor lights of all sizes on Denver streets this weekend.
The parade includes 10 animated, lighted floats. This year will feature the debut of a train called GJ Pipe Express and a historical float called Christmas Story.
Christmas Story is the first float in the history of the parade to feature a religious theme. A choir of 200 people from various churches will appear in a candlelight procession and sing carols.
There also will be five giant helium balloons (including a new 30-foot kangaroo), 10 high school marching bands and several dancing and marching groups.
The parade begins at 14th Avenue and Bannock Street. It then turns onto 14th Street to Tremont Place, 17th Street, Arapahoe Street, 15th Street and Glenarm Place, then finishes at 14th Street.
Staff writer Ed Will can be reached at 303-820-1694 or ewill@denverpost.com.
Parade of Lights
FLOATS, BANDS, GIANT BALLOONS |Downtown Denver, 8 tonight and 6 p.m. Saturday.|FREE|denverparadeoflights.com
