First Lanterns

• In 1417, the Lord Mayor of London ordered all citizens to hang a lantern from their buildings at the owner's cost. It was an unpopular decree, but nonetheless continued on for three centuries. The city of Boston is credited with being the first American city to light its streets, utilizing one lantern for the purpose in 1719, according to the book "Early American Architecture.".
  
  

Expansion and Gas

• Benjamin Franklin led an initiative to light Philadelphia thoroughfares around 1757, while the largest municipal installation to date--310 lights that burned whale oil--occurred in Boston in 1773. Gas streetlights made their presence known in Europe in the first decade of the 19th century, with Baltimore the first American city to deploy gas illumination in 1816.
  
  

Electrical

• Electricity began moving to the forefront 63 years later. "The first electric street lighting employed arc lamps developed by the Russian Pavel Yablochkov in 1875. Yablockov candles were first used to light the Grand Magasins de Louvre, Paris, " notes the Perth and Kinross Council of the United Kingdom. Cleveland became the first U.S. city to deploy electric streetlights in 1879.