At the end of the 19th century, Moonlight Towers became a popular method of urban lighting in cities across the United States, particularly in Austin, Texas. These towers, some as high as 300 feet (90 meters), were equipped with powerful carbon arc lamps designed to illuminate large areas of the city from a single source. This method of lighting was an early attempt to extend the benefits of electric light to entire communities, but it also led to early discussions of light pollution as the inte

If you look closely at one of Austin’s iconic moonlight towers you’ll see the telltale signs of a pulley system — the original way that workers had to scale the towers daily to change out the arc lights at the top. KUT listener Justin Clemens was curious about who changes the light bulbs in the towers, so he reached out to KUT’s #ATXplained project. Multimedia producer @MichaelMinasi spoke with professor and researcher Bruce Hunt at @UTAustinTX to find out more about the origins of the towers, a