The Edison State Park is located in the Menlo Park section of

Edison, New Jersey Edison is a township located in Middlesex County,in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated in Central New Jersey within the core of the state's Raritan Valley region, Edison is a commercial hub, home to Menlo Park Mall and Little India. It is ...

. It is located on Christie Street, the first street in the world to be lit up by lightbulb, just off

Lincoln Highway The Lincoln Highway is the first transcontinental highway in the United States and one of the first highways designed expressly for automobiles. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated October 31, 1913 ...

, near the

Metropark Train Station Metropark station is an intermodal transportation hub on the Northeast Corridor in the Iselin section of Woodbridge Township in Middlesex County, New Jersey that is located 24.6 miles southwest of New York Penn Station. It is owned and opera ...

. It covers a total area of . The park commemorates the site where the famous inventor

Thomas Alva Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These invention ...

had his Menlo Park laboratory. In his laboratory, Edison invented over 600 inventions such as the incandescent electric light and the

phonograph A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

, the latter being the first object to record and play sound.

History

The research and development laboratory in Menlo Park was the first of its kind in the world. On October 22, 1879, Thomas Edison tested a bamboo filament which lasted over 30 hours, which was used to create the first successful

incandescent light bulb An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxida ...

. This accomplishment followed Edison's testing of over a thousand filaments in six months. Three years earlier, Thomas Edison tested his wax and tinfoil phonograph by recording and playing "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Thomas Edison improved Alexander Graham Bell's telephone using carbon. In addition, he invented an electric train and tested it on a track built around his laboratory, now coinciding with modern day Christie Street and

Route 27 Route 27, or Highway 27, may refer to: Australia * Burke Developmental Road (Queensland) * Zeehan Highway (Tasmania) Canada * Alberta Highway 27 * British Columbia Highway 27 * Manitoba Highway 27 * Prince Edward Island Route 27 * Saskatchew ...

. In 1887, when Thomas Edison needed a bigger laboratory closer to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, he moved his research laboratory to

West Orange, New Jersey West Orange is a suburban township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 48,843, an increase of 2,636 (+5.7%) from the 46,207 counted in the 2010 Census.

. Most of the buildings either burned down or collapsed, and the two surviving buildings, the glass shed and the Sarah Jordan Boarding House were moved by

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...

in 1929 to

Greenfield Village The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, and as the Edison Institute) is a history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, United States. The museum collection conta ...

Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 109,976. Dearborn is the seventh most-populated city in Michigan and is home to the largest Muslim population in the United States pe ...

, now part of

The Henry Ford The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, and as the Edison Institute) is a history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, Dearborn, Michigan, United States. The museum ...

museum. The remaining structure from the other buildings was used by Henry Ford to rebuild them in Greenfield Village, where they are still open today. Despite the fact that Edison's laboratory had fully been relocated, on May 16, 1925, John Leib, vice president of the

New York Edison Company Consolidated Edison, Inc., commonly known as Con Edison (stylized as conEdison) or ConEd, is one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the United States, with approximately $12 billion in annual revenues as of 2017, and over $62 b ...

, dedicated a stone tablet and memorial at the intersection of Christie Street and Route 27 (Lincoln Highway), a gift from the

State of New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware Ri ...

, with Edison, his wife Edison, and Governor George S. Silzer attending the event. On May 17, 1937, construction began on a new monument to Edison, the Edison Tower. On February 11, 1938, seven years after Edison's death, a tall

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

tower was dedicated in honor of the Wizard of Menlo Park. A small, two room museum houses a collection of Edison memorabilia such as historic light bulbs, phonographs, dynamos and portions of Edison's electric train test track. Tours are available for free, although the Edison Tower Memorial Corporation recommends visitors to donate at least $5.00 per person. The tower was closed in 1992 after slabs of concrete started falling from the 54-year-old freestanding structure. After it was put on the list of

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

's most endangered historic sites in 1997, the Edison Township Memorial Corporation started a $3.87 million renovation. On October 24, 2015, the end of the restoration was marked by a rededication ceremony which included the relighting of the tower. Plans were also announced to build a new, larger museum featuring artifact exhibits and interactive activities. Surrounding the two historic acres is a small forest with a couple of trails. The forest features a small pond, a meadow, and several ravines which are visible from the trail. On Christie Street, the world's first street lit by electric lights, there are several informative boards describing Menlo Park in the Edison Era.

References

Inline citations

General references

*http://www.menloparkmuseum.org/thomas-edison-and-menlo-park. Thomas Edison and Menlo Park, July 1, 2013. *http://www.thehenryford.org/village/historicdistricts.aspx. Edison at Work, July 1, 2013. *https://web.archive.org/web/20130531034607/http://www.menloparkmuseum.org/new-museum. New Museum, July 3, 2013. *https://web.archive.org/web/20160201032330/http://www.preservationnj.org/site/ExpEng/index.php?%2Ften_most_12%2Farchive_by_city_detail%2F1997%2FThomas_Edison_Memorial_Tower. Thomas Edison Memorial Tower, July 3, 2013. *https://web.archive.org/web/20131007102132/http://menloparkmuseum.org/rejuvenated-edison-state-park. Rejuvenated Edison State Park, July 4, 2013 *Carlson, Laurie. Thomas Edison: His Life and Ideas. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated, 2006. *Makin, Bob. "Edison Memorial Tower Rededicated." MY CENTRAL JERSEY. MyCentralJersey.com, 25 Oct. 2015. Web. 11 Oct. 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Edison State Park Thomas Edison Edison, New Jersey

History

See also

References

Inline citations

General references