Made in New Jersey

Residents of New Jersey’s cities found it easier to navigate their streets at night as gas-fed lamps were installed on roads in the mid-19th Century. The Hay Foundry and Iron Works in Newark produced thousands of cast-iron lamps that were soon ubiquitous in the state’s major population centers. This cast-iron lamp post was made around 1880 at the Hay Foundry in a section of Newark now called, appropriately enough, the Ironbound. At its peak, the Hay Foundry and Iron Works employed 400 people before the Great Depression. They were acquired by the Bethlehem Steel Company in the 1930s.