Lester Farnsworth Wire,who was lived between (1887–1958) is credited with the invention of the electric traffic light in 1912 in Salt Lake City. Wire worked as a detective for the Salt Lake City police force.The original traffic light, based on a semaphore system, had been invented in London in 1868 by John Peake Knight but had not been a success.
Early Life and his Career
Lester Wire attended Salt Lake high school . In 1909 he was enrolled to University of Utah as law student, which he found too expensive and quit to join Salt Lake City Police in 1910. In 1912 he was appointed to head first traffic squad at the age of 24 by police chief B.F. Grant. When traffic light was installed, the pedestrians would yell at drivers waiting in cars for the light to change, "Are you waiting to see if the birdies will come out?" or "I saw a birdie that time; now you can go?" The traffic light became known as "Wire's bird cage" and "Wire's pigeon house."
He devised a durable metal stoplight, using the smokestack from an old locomotive engine for the frame, but without a yellow caution light. He thought of having it patented but it took long time.
In March 1963 the Wire Memorial Museum and Historical Association was started in his family home. His sister, Edith, tried to secure the original stoplight from the Tracy Aviary where it had been used as a bird house, but it had disappeared shortly after Wire's death. The original metal stoplight had been displayed in Syracuse, New York, for many years. In 1964 Edith asked if it could be returned to Utah for display in the museum, but the people in New York replied that it had been thrown out two days before her letter arrived.
Edith died in 1973. She left her money to keep the museum operating, but there were not enough funds to do that. Trustees for the estate referred the problem to the courts. As a solution, the Utah State Department of Transportation agreed to use the assets of the estate to create and maintain a suitable memorial to the inventor of the traffic light. To that end the Lester Farnsworth Wire Memorial Library was included in the new Department of Transportation building at 5401 South 2700 West in Salt Lake City.
Death
He was buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery.