Cincinnati’s Nightlife Was Illuminated By Flaming Gas, And It Wasn’t Natural At All

At nighttime, Cincinnati shines like a jewel these days, with lights and lamps of all sorts. A panoply of neon, incandescent, LED, and fluorescent sources spray photons in a dazzling array. Electricity, however, has only dominated the past century or so of our city’s history. Before 1900, when Cincinnati’s nightlife was legendary, every single source of illumination involved some sort of flame. It…