Posted 4 years ago
dav2no1
(839 items)
1900s Justrite Manufacturing Horizontal Miner Lamp
Justrite Manufacturing
Marked on left side:
JUSTRITE
pat dec 17 1901
pat may 7 1912
pat Oct 28 1913
Others pending
This is another piece I bought a while back back for garage art. In the process of taking pictures I noticed the name and patent dates on the side. The lower half was very hard to read, so I had to get some polish out and clean it some so I could actually see what it said.
This lantern has seen a hard life and is in very bad shape. Regardless of that, I believe this is a very rare early version of the horizontal Justrite lantern.
In 1892, a Canadian man, Thomas L. Watson, concocted something that would revolutionize the way hundreds of local miners would view their work – he manufactured the first batch of calcium carbide.
Calcium carbide is created by heating a lime and carbon mixture in an arc furnace to a temperature of between 3,632 to 3,812 degrees. Calcium carbonate is a fairly hard substance that reacts violently when introduced to water. A product of this violent reaction is acetylene gas, which serves as an excellent fuel for lighting. It didn’t take long for a number of companies such as Universal Lamp Co., Justrite Manufacturing and the Black Diamond Manufacturing Co. to design and produce various kinds of carbide-powered lamps.
Carbide lamps became widely used by the 1920s. They were used for automobiles, lighthouses and even bicycles, but were most popular among miners because of the quality of light they provided and the fact that acetylene gas produced a fair amount of heat from a relatively small flame.
