On the day that the Pearl Street Station powered up for the first time, Edison was standing in the offices of J.P. Another benefit to the Pearl Street location was its proximity to Wall Street and all the potential financial backers that Edison could impress with his invention. The more people he could serve with his power plant, the faster that word - and customer demand -would spread. He chose the site with care, because he wanted a densely populated area that was home to potential business as well as residential customers. His next step was to invent all the fixtures, sockets, fuses, and meters that would be installed in buildings, and then form manufacturing companies to supply them.Įdison built his first commercial power plant at 257 Pearl Street, in lower Manhattan’s First District. He looked at the way other utilities like gas and water were delivered, and determined that he could lay electrical cables under the streets of Manhattan. He founded the Edison Electric Illuminating Company in 1880 and began working on a way to not only generate electricity, but also to deliver it into people’s homes and businesses. Edison had already invented a long-lasting electric light bulb, but there was no electric infrastructure, and therefore no demand for his invention. Thomas Edison flipped a switch to turn on the first commercial electric power plant on this date in 1882. A parking lot sits on the site now, but there is a historic monument to the original “city of angels” nearby. It was roughly bounded by the streets now known as Main Street, Spring Street, Paseo Luis Olivares, and West Cesar Estrada Chavez Boulevard. While its exact location has not been determined, many historians believe that the original pueblo was north of what is today downtown Los Angeles, near Chinatown. Ten days of heavy rains caused the river to overflow its banks, and the debris the water carried with it created a dam that actually changed the river’s course. While the Europeans managed to sustain their colony, they also brought European diseases, which devastated the Native American population.įlooding wiped out the original pueblo in 1815. The area was also home to an existing Native American village known as Yang-na, or Yabit. The royal treasury issued each family two oxen, two mares, two mules, two sheep, two cows with one calf, one donkey, and one hoe - the cost of which was deducted from their pay in installments.
Eleven families took him up on the offer, and the original Spanish population of Los Angeles was just 44 people. De Neve sent out a call to Mexico for settlers. The corners of the pueblo were laid out at the four cardinal directions, so that strong winds would not blow up and down the town’s streets. De Neve followed the usual Spanish model: a central plaza, a town house, a guardhouse, and a granary. On the orders of King Carlos III of Spain, Governor Felipe de Neve drew up the plans for a settlement on the bank of the Porciúncula - later known as the Los Angeles - River.
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