New solar lamps installed in downtown Deming

Light rain fell on downtown Deming Monday night, Aug. 14, with dramatic lightning and thunder in the background. Hardly anyone was strolling downtown after sunset, with businesses closed and ominous weather in the air, but a lone reporter was out to observe new lamps recently installed along Gold Avenue and Spruce Street.

Crews with Las Cruces contractor L-E Electric were busy Monday removing the crowns of downtown Deming’s old gas-powered street lamps and replacing them with new solar-powered LED lighting.

“This upgrade will bring brighter, greener, and more sustainable lighting to our cityscape,” the city stated in a Facebook post about the lamps last week, adding: “Plan to take a stroll downtown soon.”

A supervisor with L-E Electric said the lamps are activated by sensors that detect when the sun begins to set.

Forty-eight lamps extend from Pine to Hemlock streets on Gold, and on Spruce beginning west of Gold and moving east to Copper, where lamps surround the parking lot across from the post office and also line an alleyway between Spruce and Pine.

“The Deming Luna County MainStreet program is excited and pleased to see the city of Deming revamping the old downtown streetlights,”director Chelsea Evans stated in an email. “The new lights will create a wonderful ambiance in the downtown district.”

The new lamp heads mimic the glass chimneys of gas-powered street lamps of the 20th century and by day lend an unobtrusive touch of character to downtown streets.

Most of the lamps glowed brightly overhead while approximately 10 did not switch on. The city explained that some of the lamps had not yet been set to turn on at sunset. The working lamps cast a strong yet non-glaring white light on the sidewalks below them, sometimes mingling with light from other sources as from the Wells Fargo parking lot or existing street lights that project yellow light downward.

The humidity in the air gave the lamps a bit of a mysterious glow Monday night, but hardly anyone could be seen walking as rain began to fall, except for the reporter walking around counting lamps.

Algernon D’Ammassa can be reached at [email protected].