City Views Its Past in New Light(s) : Fillmore

Not content to let bygones be bygones, Fillmore residents are trying to recapture the past by installing old-fashioned street lights in the downtown business district.

As part of an effort to restore the city’s once-thriving business district to its original turn-of-the century splendor, 23 new lights are being installed in a three-block redevelopment district on Central Avenue between Sepse Avenue and Highway 126.

Patterned after street lights in downtown Los Angeles in the early part of the century, the new lights lend a glow of nostalgia to the city, officials say.

“I feel like I’m walking back into the time when I was a kid growing up in Fillmore,” said City Councilman Roger Campbell of the rehabilitated downtown area.

But old-fashioned style doesn’t come with an old-fashioned price tag. At nearly double the cost of standard street lights, the new nostalgic lights are expected to cost the city about $50,000 in redevelopment money.

City officials say the nostalgic lights are well worth the additional expense. “The new street lights make an immeasurable difference,” Campbell said.

With the help of redevelopment money, many downtown businesses have restored storefronts to their original condition, and the downtown theater marquee has been renovated, adding to the overall effect of the downtown area, he said.

As the the first city in Southern California to buy the replicas of the first underground-fed, electrified street lights used in the 1920s, Fillmore is breaking new ground in its attempt to recapture the past, said Tom Bradley, planning manager of the Southern California Edison Co.

“We think they will now come back into demand again as cities attempt to recreate the old Main Street look in their downtown and historic district areas,” he said.

Unlike the lights that shed a dim glow on city streets of old, the new lights use state-of-the-art technology to illuminate roadways, Bradley said.

Manufactured in Fillmore, the nostalgic light fixtures use efficient, high-pressure sodium vapor and are twice as bright as many conventional street lights, he said.

“It’s like you’re stepping into the past a little bit,” Bradley said.