If you’re a real Cincinnati history aficionado, you probably know about the “turtle lamps” — yellow lamps that were once scattered all across the city to indicate streetcar platforms or raised islands in the hopes that drivers wouldn’t crash into a median late at night.
In recent years, however, the once-ubiquitous lamps have almost entirely disappeared from both public view and public knowledge. One local Cincinnatian is attempting to change all that.
Chris Spinney, a furniture maker by trade and a self-proclaimed “transit nerd,” has been making replica versions of the famous lamps for a few years now, after rumors emerged that the city stopped replacing the historical artifacts every time one gets destroyed by an errant driver.
“My idea was ‘well, if we can’t replace them, but I can make them, maybe we can just keep them going indefinitely.’ A lot of people say they’ve never seen them, but I’m like, you’ve definitely driven down Central Parkway before,” he said, laughing. “In the research process, I made my own mini version of the lamp and showed it to some other transit nerd friends, and they told me I needed to sell them because people would freak out over them.”
His friends were correct. After an initial run of 25 lamps at 1/4 the scale of an actual “turtle lamp” sold out immediately, Spinney has put out 25 more small lamps each month since the initial run — which, of course, also sell out almost immediately.
Spinney isn’t sure when the first turtle lamp was erected in Cincinnati, as his research has led him to plenty of conflicting sources. Sometime around the 1920s and 30s, the Milwaukee-based Line Material Company was a prominent electrical manufacturer. One of their products was beacon lights, which were commonly shaped in the form of acorns. For whatever reason, Cincinnati’s lights were different, with the first verifiable documented appearance happening in 1937.
“Cincinnati got a unique shape and color for these beacon lights, and I haven’t seen them in any other city. I’ve talked to a few streetlight people who have that as their little fixation, and they say they’ve never seen anything like this in any other city,” he said.
A graduate of Purcell Marian who grew up in Pleasant Ridge, he began his research out of a longing for the bygone era of decent public transit. His grandfather was an architect and his father was a carpenter, so he naturally gravitated towards the lamps.
“Until 1951, Pleasant Ridge was a streetcar suburb, which is obviously something I never got to experience. But it’s fascinating to me how the streetcar system worked, and how you could get around pretty much wherever you wanted,” he said. “To me, the lamps are a nice little remnant of that time. A time when I would say design felt a little more thought through. Like, yeah, we’ll take time to think of a more ornate piece of design for the average pedestrian that’s using a streetcar versus just any light from the catalog.”
The biggest shock for him though, was when he finally got his hands on an actual lamp and came to a surprising realization: all of the existing turtle shell lampshades are not glass, but plastic.
“When I first heard they were not replacing them, I was like, ‘well, they’re glass, they fall down, they shatter. Like, obviously, we do not have somebody making new custom glass shades for the city in 2026.’ Then I saw the real, plastic thing and was like, ‘wait, this seems doable,'” he said. “I already had a 3D printer up, and I said, well, let’s see if I can scan this lamp shade and recreate it. I was actually able to do a perfect replica model one to one.”
Of course, the number one request he gets from customers is for lamps that are the same size or even bigger than the original. (“They’re coming,” he says.) But although he can’t prove it, he’s convinced that the lamps were, at one point, glass — and that’s what he truly wants to recreate.
“I wouldn’t be shocked if, for a period, they were actually glass, and then they got slowly broken and replaced by plastic over the next 70 years. I’ve seen a few get knocked down and replaced, so I know the city has to have some in storage somewhere,” he said. “If we’re getting back to making them how they were maybe made originally, this is something that can last for generations. If my kids could stand under that turtle lamp that I put up, what else could you want as a designer or fabricator or builder?”
In the end, though, he just wants to keep a small, obscure part of Cincinnati’s history alive.
“I have quite a lot of pride in being a Cincinnatian. And so when I see a unique design object like the turtle lamp, I go, ‘Why aren’t we celebrating this? Why aren’t we proud of this? Why aren’t we thinking, ‘hey, we’re putting in streetcar stops, so why don’t we incorporate this lamp in some way since it is unique to the city?'” he said. “If they all get knocked down, they’re just gone forever … And maybe they’ll disappear from the streets in 25 years. It is what it is. But if I could have a replica in somebody’s house, or in a bar, a little wall sconce. To me, that means we’re keeping the memory going, and that’s the ultimate goal, really.”
For more information on Spinney’s replica turtle lamps, including how to buy them, visit his website or his Instagram page.
