Obituary

James A. Lighthipe, Chief Electrical Engineer, of the Southern California Edison Company, died of pneumonia in Los Angeles, California, April 10, 1925. Mr. Lighthipe was born in Orange, New Jersey, in the year 1857 and in 1879 became one of the group of men Edison gathered about him at his laboratory in Menlo Park. In the Fall of that year Mr. Edison sent him abroad, where he remained five years engaged with the Edison Telephone Company in London, and the Edison Company in Paris and Berlin. On his return to the United States in 1884 he engaged in the installation of Brush arc lighting sets, was made superintendent of construction of the Edison Consolidated Electric Company which was merged into the Edison General Electric Company and later the General Electric Company. He acted as district engineer of the General Electric Company at their San Francisco office until 1908, when he became electrical engineer for the Edison Electric Company of Los Angeles. Mr. Lighthipe was not only an electrical engineer, but mechanical and civil engineer as well. His judgment and personal character were such that his opinions were accepted by consumers as the opinion of an independent consulting engineer.