Oh, you should have seen Reefton in 1888. It glowed. It was illuminated by the future.
In August of that year — and I am confident I have my facts right because I am quoting directly from the town's own website — Reefton became the first place in New Zealand and the Southern Hemisphere to have a public supply of electricity, even before the fashionable suburbs of London and New York.
But it was New York’s J.P. Morgan who got there first of all. In 1882 he had Thomas Edison and his men in to wire up his Madison Avenue house and install incandescent light bulbs in every room – 385 in total.
