The new hallway exhibit Let There Be Light will open at the beginning of April at the Old Courthouse Museum. The exhibit will examine how technology developed to provide the light used to extend our days past dawn and dusk.  On display will be fixtures and lamps associated with the four types of artificial light - candlelight, oil-lamp light, gas light, and electric light.  From antiquity to the colonial era, a simple wick or reed in a hollow container of oil or animal fat provided faint illumination.  Examples of these early devices will be contrasted against candlelight, which though brighter, presented its own problems.  Rapid advancements during the Industrial Revolution produced the kerosene lamp, gas chandeliers, and finally the electric light bulb, whose light was so bright it had to be shaded.  Examples of these different technologies will illustrate how light fixtures developed from simple, practical devices to decorative items that clearly reflect changing fashions.