This light bulb installed in 1901 has gone through several generations of firefighters

In a Livermore fire station, a small light bulb attracts attention that is rarely reserved for a service light. Installed for the first time in 1901, this carbon filament lamp has gone through changes in buildings and several generations of firefighters. Its longevity has made it famous.

His story, however, does not correspond to the sometimes repeated formula of a light never extinguished. The committee that maintains its documentation describes trips, cuts and a interruption of several hours in 2013. The lamp then resumed operation. In 1976, his transfer to another barracks had even benefited from an escort.

These interruptions do not cancel the astonishment: they simply render the narrative accurate. It cannot be inferred that the bulb would be indestructible or explain its entire lifespan by a single certain recipe. The remarkable object is a real copy, whose archives follow the course, and which has survived a succession of places, uses and decades.