Scranton - The Electric City

As early as 1910, an electric sign atop this building could be seen after dark from many vantage points throughout Scranton. In early photos it read "Watch Scranton Grow," and later it was changed to "Scranton - The Electric City" to celebrate the city’s position as the first in the United States with a commercially viable electric streetcar line. The sign was not added until after 1923, when the Electric Company acquired the building, which had been erected in 1896 just north of Courthouse Square as Scranton’s first skyscraper and named the Board of Trade Building after developers offered the Board of Trade space for nominal rent of $36 per month. The sign burned brightly for more than six decades before being extinguished in the early 1970s because of economic conditions. On December 9, 2004, it was lit again through a community-wide fundraising campaign, and it remains the city’s most prominent nocturnal landmark and a symbol of Scranton’s past and future.

Scranton, Pennsylvania · United States