The town's actual step into the Industrial Age took place in 1897 when the industrial pioneer, Anton Raky, moved the head office of the International Drilling Company ("Internationaler Bohrgesellschaft"), known locally as the "Bohr", to Erkelenz. Key factors in choosing this location were the favourable railway links to the Ruhr area and the Aachen Coalfield. In the years that followed industrial workers and engineers flocked to Erkelenz, creating a shortage of housing, a situation that could only be alleviated by establishing a charitable building association. Between the town centre and the railway line, a new quarter emerged, known colloquially as "Kairo" (pronounced: Kah-ee-roh) due to the little foreign looking towers on many of the houses. In 1909 the drilling firm employed 50 staff and 460 workers. During the wartime year of 1916 it had as many as 1,600 employees. When, on 10 May 1898, a bronze statue of Emperor William I was erected on the market place, it was illuminated, at Raky's initiative, with electric lighting from arc lamps. That marked the introduction of electricity into the public arena in Erkelenz. In the same year the first street lamps were erected in "Bahnhofstraße" (today "Kölner Straße") and the first mains electricity was delivered to houses.