When it comes to weird places in the American Southwest, Austin is up there with the strangest of them. After the town became besieged by the so called 'Servant Girl Annihilator' serial killer, who was responsible for 8 axe murders in the city (thought at the time by the African-American community and some practitioners of voodoo to be a white man who had magic powers that enabled him to become invisible, as no dogs in yards adjacent to locations where murders occurred were heard to bark or raise any alarm) the decision was made to implement one of the more ingenious ways the city tried to stop their killer – by turning the night into the daytime and thus prevent crime operating under the cover of darkness.
Austin officials purchased 31 of the so-called moonlight towers from Detroit in 1894, planning on using them to make the city safer at night. Many were installed in 1894 and 1895 – even though they weren’t installed until well after the killings mysteriously stopped, they were still credited with the continued safety of the city’s residents. The towers, standing about 165 feet tall and supporting six 6,400 watt lamps, turned night into day – their light was so powerful that local farmers feared that it would disrupt the natural rhythm of their chickens’ egg-laying habits. (They didn’t.)
A bit of fun trivia – the area immediately around the bases of the towers is known unofficially as the First-Kiss Zone, for all the romances that begin there in the artificial moonlight.
The moonlight towers were famously featured in the movie Dazed and Confused, bringing back something of an interest in the towers. Only 17 of the original 31 still stand, and they are still functional.
Originally published here: https://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2014/11/10-most-weird-places-american-southwest/
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