Once upon a time, there was a sick boy with a window. So sick was little David Sturgeon that he couldn’t leave his second-floor bedroom, even to celebrate Christmas. He couldn’t go down the stairs of his family’s Denver home to see the tree or the decorations hung upon it. But what David did h ave was a window. And outside that window was a pine tree. He also had an electrician for a father. It was 1914, two years after the elder Sturgeon — also named David, though he went by D.D. — founded Sturgeon Electric Company. With his son sick upstairs, Sturgeon took some of the family’s light bulbs, dipped them in green and red paint, and strung them along a length of electrical wire. Then he clambered up the pine tree and festooned it with incandescent color. “David lay in his bed, watching the lights sparkle like emeralds and rubies against the ermine mantle of snow,” the still-running Sturgeon Electric wrote on the company’s Facebook page in 2017. It’s believed to be the first time Christmas lights had been hung outside anywhere, said Jason Hanson, a historian and chief creative officer at History Colorado. Indoor Christmas lights were invented more than 30 years earlier, by Edward Johnson, a colleague of Thomas Edison. But no one had moved the lights outside. The year after Sturgeon strung up the tree, some neighbors hung up their own lights, too. The tradition spread across the city and, later, the country. By 1919, Denver’s official electrician began changing lights and decorating municipal buildings. In 1920, the oldest-running large-scale light display was started in California. Kansas City followed in 1930, and Denver launched its own in 1938. “There’s something about it that just feels right. At the holiday season, it’s dark. You’re bringing light,” Hanson said. Like the marvel in Denver, Johnson’s earlier invention of Christmas lights also involved a tree and a window. In the early 1880s, he’d strung 80 red, white and blue bulbs on a tree in his parlor window, according to the Smithsonian. Still, it would take years before electric lights became ubiquitous. At the time, Christmas candles were far more common. But they were also dangerous: A 1917 Christmas tree fire caused by a candle killed several people in New York City. A local teenager — whose family also worked in the burgeoning electrical industry — then suggested that his family produce colored bulbs for festive and safer lighting, according to Popular Mechanics. In Denver, Sturgeon would later be crowned the “Father of Yule Lighting.” The lights helped earn Denver the moniker of “Christmas city of the world,” a title encouraged by Frances “Pinky” Wayne, a veteran Denver Post journalist who also served as the Christmas editor. In 1924, a decade after Sturgeon climbed the pine tree, Wayne and The Post hosted the first citywide outdoor lighting contest (featuring $500 in prizes, including a Hoover vacuum). Mr. and Mrs. N.A. Wimer, who lived at East Eighth Avenue and Vine Street, won the grand prize, according to The Post. The next year, Wayne wrote, “the number of contestants increased more than 200%” and their “installations were 1000% more beautiful.” Weeks before he would be crowned that year’s winner, a local reverend declared his commitment to supporting the city’s growing reputation. D.D. Sturgeon, second from left, is pictured in this historical image provided by the Sturgeon Electric Company. (Photo courtesy of Sturgeon Electric Company) “Believing in Denver as I do, and believing that it is the duty of citizens and Christians to emphasize the Christmas spirit, my sons and I are going the limit to do our share to uphold Denver’s claim to the title of Christmas city of the world,” the Rev. David C. Bayless told Wayne. In Denver, the city’s annual tradition helped bring colored lights to the region, Hanson said. The city kept its lights up through the National Western Stock Show each January. The event drew people from across the region. They would return to their hometowns and, newly illuminated, eye their Christmas decor and their pine trees anew — just as Sturgeon’s neighbors had, years before. “Then, as now, neighbors got to keep up with the neighbors,” Hanson said. History Colorado now includes a box of early Christmas lights in its “Zoom In” exhibit, which features 100 objects from the state’s past. (The lights aren’t Sturgeon’s original; they were made by NOMA, the company founded by the New York City teenager who’d helped popularize electric lights after the fire there.) Before including the lights in the exhibit, Hanson said History Colorado tasked a team of researchers with debunking Sturgeon’s claim to fame. But they couldn’t disprove it, he said, beaming. Vintage Christmas lights are seen in this image provided by History Colorado. (Photo courtesy of History Colorado) Related Articles ‘Be where your feet are’: Inside Broncos WR Courtland Sutton’s quest for mental mastery Can’t-miss Christmas cookie recipes (and an irresistible caramel corn) The added burden I wish my non-Jewish neighbors understood this time of year (Opinion) Telluride owner threatens price hikes if ski resort ‘caves’ to union demands From national parks to movie marathons, Denver Post staff shares holiday traditions, recipes and memories In an email to The Post, Penne Restad, an emeritus lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin who wrote a book about Christmas in America, said “history-keeping” was complicated. But she, too, wouldn’t “take away Colorado’s claim.” As for the origin story, it’s unclear exactly how old young David Sturgeon was when his father lit up the tree outside his window, or the nature of his illness. A death notice for him was published in the Denver Post nearly seven years later, in September 1921, and it cited his age at 13 when he died. Don Egan, the president of Sturgeon Electric’s commercial and industrial division, said the story’s been part of the company culture during the entirety of his nearly 35 years there. “It’s emotional for some people,” he said. “The heritage, the history. The fact that it started with D.D. Sturgeon and that the Sturgeon name still lasts today.” Both the family and the city are now part of how Americans think about Christmas, Hanson said. “People who celebrate Christmas, I’ll bet you the image in their head when you say ‘Christmas’ involves some kind of lights, lighted houses, ‘National Lampoon’ lighting up the house so it can be seen from space,” he said. “All that starts with the Sturgeons.” Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, In The Know, to get entertainment news sent straight to your inbox. People watch as holiday lights illuminate the Denver City and County Building on November 22, 2023, in Denver. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post) ...read more read less