Edison-Ford Winter Estates

After church we drove north into the older part of Fort Meyers to the Winter Estates of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Thomas Edison bought the property in 1885, designed two homes, one for use as a guest house, and gardens and started spending a couple of months each winter here. Until 1904 when the railroad was finished to Fort Myers, they came by boat. Edison and Henry Ford were great friends and Mr. Ford bought a neighboring home in 1916 and his family came down every winter in order to celebrate Mr. Edison's birthday. The homes are not pretentious, but the property fronts on the Caloosahatchee River and the views are spectacular.

The property has what is considered the largest banyan tree in the world (?). Harvey Firestone brought it to Mr. Edison in 1925 when it was four feet tall and it now covers an acre. Edison, Ford and Firestone were working on research for a domestic source of natural rubber. Its growth is stopped now because of the asphalted parking lot but it is amazing. Here Mr. Edison and I are standing in front of the tree.


In 1947 his widow donated the property to the City of Ft. Myers and the home still has the original furnishings. Among them are these "electroliers" designed by Mr. Edison to use his electric light bulbs. There are several in the houses, all different. He supposedly came up with the name. he said that they weren't chandeliers because they didn't use candles. The light put out by this electrolier is about as much a one 100 watt bulb, but it was still better than candlelight.



Everyone learns about Mr. Edison as the great inventor, but he holds almost 1,100 patents and was granted at least one a year for 65 years. He worked even on vacation. He built a laboratory in 1928 to do find a source of natural rubber from a plant. He tried several thousand and found 40 that he could cultivate on a large scale. Goldenrod, a common weed was the most successful. He developed a strain that grew to a height of 12 feet and had a yield of 12% latex. His last time in this lab was in 1931, a few month before he died in his home in New Jersey. (We plan to visit that later this spring.) His laboratory building sits as it was left, with his cot in the office, and equipment in the workroom.




After our tour we drove through downtown Fort Myers and you could have shot a cannon through the street and not hit anything. It's not in disrepair, just deserted on the week-end.