Science & invention / Business & brands
Thomas Edison
1847–1931 · inventor, businessman
America's best-known inventor, who grew up in Port Huron, sold newspapers on the Grand Trunk trains to Detroit, learned telegraphy at Mount Clemens, and whose Menlo Park laboratory Henry Ford rebuilt in Dearborn.
- Born
Milan, Ohio- Died
West Orange, New Jersey
aged 84- Birth name
- Thomas Alva Edison
- Also known as
- Thomas Alva Edison
- Detroit years
- 1854–1863; 1929
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, in 1847, and in 1854 his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. In 1859 the Grand Trunk Railway opened its line from Port Huron to Detroit, and twelve-year-old Edison went to work on it as a news butcher, selling newspapers, candy and vegetables to passengers; he even printed his own paper, the Grand Trunk Herald. In August 1862, during a layover at the Mount Clemens station, he pulled the station agent's three-year-old son out of the path of a train, and the grateful father, J. U. MacKenzie, taught him railroad telegraphy, the trade that launched his career. He went on to invent the phonograph and a practical electric light bulb and to build industrial research laboratories. Henry Ford, who met him in 1896 while working for Detroit's Edison Illuminating Company, became a close friend, moved Edison's Menlo Park laboratory complex to Greenfield Village in Dearborn and dedicated the museum to him on October 21, 1929, the 50th anniversary of the light bulb.
Highlights
- Newsboy on the Grand Trunk line between Port Huron and Detroit from 1859
- Learned telegraphy at the Mount Clemens station, 1862
- Inventor of the phonograph and a practical incandescent lamp
- His Menlo Park laboratory complex was reconstructed at Greenfield Village, 1929
- The Henry Ford museum complex was dedicated to him as the Edison Institute
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 3
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Memorial · 1929
Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation
Greenfield Village holds the reconstructed Menlo Park laboratory complex, dedicated with Edison present on October 21, 1929; the museum also keeps the test tube said to hold his last breath.
Studied here · 1862
Mount Clemens station (Michigan Transit Museum)
The 1859 Grand Trunk depot where station agent J. U. MacKenzie taught young Edison telegraphy; a Michigan State Historic Site now run as the Michigan Transit Museum.
Worked here · 1859–1863
Thomas Edison Depot Museum
The 1858 Grand Trunk depot in Port Huron from which Edison worked as a news butcher; a museum since 2001.