World's first overhead wired electricity turns on

Thomas Edison

On January 19, 1883, the world's first electric lighting system employing overhead wires began service in Roselle, New Jersey. The system was built by Thomas Edison as part of an experiment to prove that the entire community could be lit by electricity from a shared, central generating station.

A steam-driven generator sent the juice through the wires strung overhead to a store, the town's railway depot, 40 or so houses and 150 streetlights. The First Presbyterian Church of Roselle made electrical and ecclesiastical history three months later when it installed a 30-bulb "electrolier" and became the world's first church to be lighted by electricity. - wired.com