One of the great pleasures of the holiday season is driving around the city and seeing all the joyful outdoor lights. From the few gleaming strands of multi-colored bulbs suspended beneath the eaves of a house to the soaring brilliance of incandescent globes hanging on cables of the “world’s tallest Christmas tree,” hearts warm and the darkness of a winter’s night dissipates.
One of the earliest efforts to brighten the Indianapolis business district and purge away the gloom of a December’s eve occurred during the 1896 Christmas season when, along each side of Washington Street between Illinois and Delaware, “incandescent electric light bulbs in various colors” were sprinkled among a long line of evergreen, supported by pillars wrapped in greenery. Four years later, the same strip of Washington Street “was ablaze with red and white electric lights” as two thousand “incandescents,” attached to wires spanning Washington St. and intertwined with evergreen, gleamed in “a most attractive decoration.”
In 1913, the first municipal Christmas tree, a mammoth pine decorated with 1,000 glittering white electric lights and surmounted with a large illuminated electric star, was placed in University Park at the suggestion of the Cornelia Cole Fairbanks chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Visible for blocks, the dazzling Christmas tree dispelled the shadows and cast the spirit of the season across the city. However, in succeeding years the tree was replaced by a large Christmas star whose lighting on Christmas Eve sent “its rays out across the park and beyond” like a beacon shining aloft through the dusk with “its message of hope.”
Outdoor holiday lighting expanded across Indianapolis in 1927 when the Indianapolis Star announced its Decoration and Illumination Contest with the goal to “make Indianapolis a city of Christmas lights – to have homes and business houses, churches and clubs, unite in providing outdoor illuminations that will send out the message of the spirit of Christmas translated into terms of ruby and gold, of green and blue, of orange and violet.” Children were invited to write letters to the Star during the first two weeks of December expressing the “best reasons why Indianapolis should be decorated and lighted during the Christmas season.” Many carried the theme “How cold and lonely is the darkness of night, but when it’s Christmas Eve, especially, how changed is this same cold night with little islands shinning through, all up and down the many streets, all because we let the lights of happiness shine out.”
At the conclusion of the contest, L. Strauss & Co, clothiers, 33 W. Washington St., and the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, 320 N. Meridian St, were awarded first place in the business, churches, and clubs division. The Strauss decoration “consists of – a great illuminated airplane, whose wings stretch across the entire front of the building; from the cockpit of the plane Santa Claus, outlined in lights, gives a widely grinning welcome to one and all. The airplane design is flanked on either side by mammoth three-branched candlesticks, and the words ‘Greeting – 1927-28,’ the whole being worked out in lights of rainbow colors – blue and red, orange and gold, purple and green.” The Chamber of Commerce prize-winning entry, an “immense likeness of a Christmas seal – the double-barred cross outlined in glowing red window lights that stretch nine stories high and six windows broad, across the front of the building.” John C. Dooley, 5899 N. Delaware St., was awarded first prize in the large house category for “two enormous Christmas trees, sparkling with rainbow-colored lights” on his front lawn; “on top of one tree was a star studded with tiny white electric bulbs; the shrubbery on either side of the front walk was wreathed with lights.” The small house winner was Mrs. S. J. King, 2922 Central Ave., with “a lighted Christmas tree standing on either side of the front steps . . . an illuminated five-pointed star was over the front door and ‘flowerpots’ of lighted flowers in red, blue, green and gold stood in the upper windows.”
The Christmas (Yuletide) outdoor lighting contest continued over the following years sponsored by the Electric League of Indianapolis in cooperation with the Star and later the Indianapolis News. Through the many grim months of the Great Depression, each December brought forth across Indianapolis neighborhoods attractive outdoor lighting displays spreading Christmas cheer that gave the city “a reputation as one of the nation’s most beautifully decorated cities at Christmas time.” In December 1942 the glittering brilliance of the holidays was switched off when the War Production Board banned “any Christmas lighting outside the home.”
When peace returned, the scarcity of materials delayed resuming the Christmas outdoor lighting contest and the elaborate yule exhibit at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument remained dark because of the continuing ban on electric displays. However, Ray and Mary Demaree, 6114 E. Ninth St., assembled a display drenching their yard in Christmas lights with clusters “that change colors and electric candles that even have flames.” Each evening, Mary Demaree played carols on an antique organ, amplified by a speaker, echoing tunes throughout the neighborhood.
The electric brilliance of the Christmas season returned in 1947 when the switch was thrown flooding the decorations around the base of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument with light and varied colored Christmas lights soared upward towards the top of the shaft to the five-pointed white stars brightly flashing from the four sides. Two years later the Christmas Outdoor Lighting Contest resumed briefly for a time with displays of colored lights imbedded in evergreen, illuminated stars, and shining “reindeer pulling Santa up to the rooftop.”
Decorating homes, businesses, and public spaces with colorful lighting displays need no more encouragement than the desire to dispel the gloom of December nights and spread the joy of Christmas. New lighting technologies – shimmering clusters of icicles hanging from the eaves and swirling images of snowflakes cast on the facades of homes – together with illuminated yard ornaments enhance the simple strands of varied colored lights of old. Today, a myriad of brilliant Christmas lights across Indianapolis from neighborhoods to the downtown Circle of Lights, from Winterlights at Newfields to Christmas at the Zoo bring cheer to every heart and carry the wish of Merry Christmas, Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All!
