When did The Peace Candle first start?
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The Peace Candle is believed to be the largest non-wax Christmas candle in the United States. Since it was first erected in 1951, Easton city officials have at various times declared it the largest candle in the world. In 1972, city council president Henry Schultz declared, "We claim, and no one has ever argued with us, that this is the largest candle in the world." However, the Schlitz Christmas Candle, a non-wax candle-like structure in Schlitz, a small town in Hesse, Germany, is larger at tall. The current Peace Candle is taller than the Guinness World Record-holder for tallest candle, which belongs to an tall, wide candle exhibited at the General Art and Industrial Exhibition of Stockholm in 1897. However, only wax candles are eligible for the record, and there is no Guinness World Record for largest non-wax candle. When the third incarnation of the Peace Candle was built in 1990, Easton officials tried unsuccessful to seek a Guinness record for it.
Peace Candle
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The Peace Candle was first erected in 1951, and has been put up almost every year since then. Due to damage or disrepair, the Peace Candle has been replaced with new candle structures twice since the original construction. The first candle lasted until 1968, the second candle from 1969 to 1989, and the current candle was built in 1990 and is expected to last until around 2014. The structure is dedicated to the Easton area men and women who have served or are serving in the United States armed forces.
Peace Candle
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On December 10, 1951, Easton Mayor Joseph Morrison flipped the switch to light up the Christmas Candle during its first dedication ceremony. Joining Morrison and Frank Bechtel in the dedication were a Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi and a Protestant minister, to demonstrate the Christmas Candle was meant to serve as a symbol of peace for all religions and denominations. News reports indicate between 500 and 1,000 people attended the ceremony. In addition to the candle, the decorations included Christmas trees, smaller candle displays, large plywood wreaths and Christmas lights set up by students from the Easton High School and the city's Wolf and Schull junior high schools. It also included a plaque honoring the Easton area men and women on active duty in the United States armed forces. The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission decorated the nearby Northampton Street bridge, which crossed the Delaware River, with its first Christmas light display in 14 years. A series of nightly Christmas choir concerts were held in front of the Christmas Candle starting December 18, and organ music was piped to the Centre Square from the city's First Presbyterian Church. Downtown business owners participated by decorating their windows with Christmas themes. Morrison called the Christmas Candle display "the most elaborate in Easton's history". The Christmas Candle was so large it drew the attention of airplanes passing over the city.
Peace Candle
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Throughout the late-1970s and the 1980s, the Nazareth-based firm Beatty Contractors erected the candle each year. The firm originally did the project for free, but began charging $2,000 in 1981 when the cost of fuel started to rise. During the Peace Candle lighting ceremony on November 28, 1980, Easton Mayor Philip Mitman dedicated the candle to the 52 American hostages being held in Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. During a storm on December 6, 1983, 47 mile-per-hour winds caused the Peace Candle to start tilting in place. When city workers removed the flame next day, they realized the bugler statue atop the Soldiers' & Sailors' Monument had moved on its base and would have toppled over had it not been leaning against the candle structure. One of the candle's anchor cables was also snapped by the wind and torn out of the brickwork. The cable was repaired and the bugler statue, which was previously held by its own weight, was reinforced with grouting. A sixteen-pound chunk of granite was also dislodged from the top of the statue, although in an area that most spectators cannot see from ground level. The candle suffered similar damage in 1988, when high winds loosened parts of the structure and snapped support wires. As a result, it had to be taken down early on January 5, 1989. In 1985, the Easton Area Christmas Committee was renamed to the Easton Holiday Committee.
Peace Candle
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The new candle sustained some minor damage over its first few years. On November 20, 1970, heavy rain and inclement weather snapped a wire helping keep the structure in place, and firefighters had to install additional braces the next day. Also that year, about 75 lights were stolen from the decorative Christmas trees set up around the candle's base. In 1971, the building where the Peace Candle was stored was broken into and the fiberglass paneling was vandalized. Easton officials declined to discuss the extent of the damage, but Henry Schultz dismissed the vandals as "kids". In 1974, the Peace Candle was only lit a few hours a night, and not at all on some nights, due to an ongoing energy crisis, which prompted the Metropolitan Edison Company to ask its Easton area customers not to use Christmas lights that year. Since the Peace Candle was seldom lit, charitable donations dropped in 1974, resulting in an $800 defect for the Easton Area Christmas Committee. Additionally the committee spent $1,700 in Peace Candle Christmas cards meant to bring in donations, but only 500 packs were sold at $1 each. The use of less electricity to light the Peace Candle did not help the committee because the city paid the lighting bill.
Peace Candle
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In 1967, the Easton Area Christmas Committee began selling greeting cards depicting Easton's Peace Candle with the hopes of raising funds to maintain the city's holiday decorations. The committee created 15,000 cards that year, and the city's Downtown Improvement Group urged residents to buy the cards and mail them to friends and family across the country, with the hopes that Easton would become nationally known as the "Peace Candle City". The cards were sold in packs of three for $1 at city businesses and homes. They were designed in four colors from a painting by Easton artist Joseph DeThomas depicting the Centre Square and the Peace Candle. The 15,000 cards went on sale on Starting on October 18, 1967, Starting on October 18, 1967, and 12,000 were already sold by October 30. The rest by November 1, and another and another 15,000 due to what Councilman Henry Schultz called the "tremendous demand". In 1969, to advertise and celebrate the first lighting ceremony for the second candle, the Easton Area Christmas Committee sold placemats and napkin sets with an image of the Peace Candle in a night setting. Ten thousand sets were sold for $1 each at various stores and banks in the city.
Peace Candle
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In 2003, a six-foot slab of fiberglass from the imitation wax at the top of the candle was knocked loose by 50 mile-per-hour winds during a storm. Nobody was injured. James Pruznick, a filmmaker from Pohatcong Township, New Jersey, made a documentary film in 2004 focused on that year's assembly of the Peace Candle, as well as interviews with politicians, artists, merchants and construction workers about the history of the structure. It was first screened in December 2004 and made available subsequently on VHS and DVD. In October 2008, fear grew that the Peace Candle would no longer be erected when Easton employees who previously volunteer to climb the Peace Candle structure no longer wished to assemble it. Those fears were put to rest the next month, however, when the trade union Lehigh Valley Erectors Inc. volunteered to put the candle up.
Peace Candle
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In 1975, the activist citizens group Lehigh-Pocono Committee of Concern (LEPOCO) formed a "human peace candle" in front of the real structure as a protest against the Vietnam War. Three group members formed a triangle while another man stood on top of their shoulders, holding a lighted candle and a sign that read, "Bring the troops home for Christmas and the rest of the year". The protest marked the 10th anniversary of LEPOCO's first protest against the war when they formed in 1965, which was also held at Center Square. In December 1981, the Polish labor union Solidarity held a late-night peace rally that included a candlelight vigil, singing and prayers for a peaceful resolution to the martial law crisis in Poland. In 1991, the city decided to leave the Peace Candle standing until the Gulf War conflict was resolved in honor of the 500,000 American troops serving in the war. The gesture was approved after a pool of residents indicated a ratio of 10-to-1 supported it. During this time, supporters of the troops tied yellow ribbons around the candle and its surrounding fence, while protesters tied black ribbons to symbolize those who died in the conflict. The candle was taken down that March after the war ended.
Peace Candle
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Ever since the Peace Candle was first erected, some Easton residents have been critical of the structure, arguing it is a tacky symbol of the over-commercialization of Christmas and not a tasteful way to convey a message of peace. Many have condemned the fact that the Peace Candle covers the Soldiers' & Sailors' Monument, which proponents see as a sign of disrespect toward veterans. Critics have also argued the candle is too expensive to maintain each year, and some have claimed the phallic shape of the symbol is inappropriate. In 1982, a petition was signed by 90 people and submitted to the Easton City Council seeking to discontinue the Peace Candle tradition, calling it a "garish symbol of inner-city decadence". The group wanted to replace it with a decorative display of evergreen tree, in honor of Easton's claim to be the first city in the United States to observe that German custom. The city rejected the petition after conducting a survey of public opinion, which polled 29 city residents in favor of the Peace Candle and four against it.
Peace Candle
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On October 25, 1968, a fire at the former incinerator plant off Route 611, where the Peace Candle was being stored, destroyed the four smaller candles that surround the base of the larger candle. The fire was believed to have started by someone playing with matches inside the building. Firefighters battled the blaze for more than an hour. Damage was estimated at a cost of $1,200. Initially, city officials announced the fire would not delay the lighting ceremony planned for December 1. However, the Easton Area Christmas Committee had already been debating the construction of a new Peace Candle prior to the fire. On October 29, Henry Schultz, now chairman of the Christmas committee, announced the four smaller candles were damaged beyond repair and no effort would be made to rebuild them. Instead, the committee would build an entirely new candle within a year.
Peace Candle