From the song "That Old Lamplighter"
Nat Simon and Charles Tobias, 1946
In
early San Francisco, a much welcomed workingman was the lamplighter.
With matches and small ladder, he would amble daily from lamp post to
lamp post along his neighborhood route, lighting gas jets at dusk and
putting them out at dawn.
Albert and Alfred Eyslee, twins born in San Francisco on November 1876, and ancestors of this site's founder, were City lamplighters around the turn of the 19th Century.
When teenagers, they carried ladders to climb 7-foot-high lamp posts, and use their wood-stick kitchen matches to light the gas jets. The jets were covered by glass globes under which were mantles -- chemically treated, incombustible hoods which, when the jets were lit, would become incandescent and give off a bright light.
In some cities, during the early 1900s, automatic timers were installed on the lamps, thus eliminating the need for lamplighters. During the day the gas valve would remain open and a pilot light would burn so low that one could hardly tell it was lit. At night, however, the flame would be increased automatically to provide a bright light.
Daily Alta California, March 14, 1853
City Lamps
The contract for lighting the city with oil has been fulfilled in the true San Francisco style, that is, not fulfilled at all, in a manner consonant to the spirit of the contract. They are at best but mere apologies for lights, even in the early part of the evening, when they are extensively aided by the many lamps in stores, saloons, and other public places. They are so far apart, and shine with such a stickly, insufficient ray, that they only serve to make darkness more apparent.
But this is not all. It is our impression that the contract stipulated for the lighting of certain streets all night long. If so, it has not been complied with, for we have noticed for several nights past that as the hours wane away, so do the lamps, and 3 o'clock in the morning finds the city enveloped in almost Egyptian darkness.
On Tuesday morning last, between 3 and 4 o'clock, not one single lamp shed its glimmering ray throughout the whole length of Montgomery Street. It is high time that the city authorities inform themselves of the city's actual style.