University City Searchlight
The University City Searchlight is a searchlight, which was installed in the Woman's Magazine Building (now City Hall) in 1903 prior to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (also known as the St. Louis World's Fair).[1][2] The light would go on to shine over the World's Fair in order to attract visitors to E .G. Lewis' Tent City and to sell them subscriptions to his Womans Magazine. The light was and is the largest G. E. Type searchlight in the world at 80 inches[convert: unknown unit] in diameter.[3] The light raises out of the roof of University City Hall on a custom-built counterweight elevator. The original purpose of the light seems to have just been for publicity purposes as not much records of the light shining after 1904 exist. E. G Lewis would go on to leave University City in 1912 and the light would fall into disrepair. It would "re-lit" in 1930 when the building officially was converted to use for University City as their City Hall. The light would then remain dormant again until re-discovered" in 1964 by assistant City engineer Robert Norvell. At this point parts of the light had been gutted in the 1940s for use in the war effort. Robert Norvell would go onto convert the internals of the light to utilize the internals from a WWII searchlight. The light would be relit on May 10 by Mayor Kaufman.[4] It would then be maintained and utilized by his son Bill Kaufman for decades up until the present. 60 years later and the light needs some restoration. The elevator is needing to be serviced to operate reliably and wiring needs to be cleaned up in order for the light to shine over the city once more.
References
- ↑ Hecker, Caroline (2025-06-20). "Historic searchlight atop city hall in University City undergoing restoration". https://www.firstalert4.com. Retrieved 2025-12-22. External link in
|website=(help) - ↑ "Home". University City Searchlight. Retrieved 2025-12-22.
- ↑ "Carbon Arc Searchlight Owners ForumCarbon Arc Searchlight". www.victorysearchlights.com. Retrieved 2025-12-22.
- ↑ "Home". University City Searchlight. Retrieved 2025-12-22.
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