February 12, 2022 - Edison & Ford Winter Homes
Fort Myers, Florida
Leaving our base at The Villages, we drove south down to Fort Myers to visit our friends Gary and Karen S., staying overnight in their beautiful home. The next day we visited the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford Winter Estate, which not only included their waterfront homes but Edison's research lab, botanical gardens and a very good museum.
The weather was absolutely perfect today, as you can see. There were lots of people milling about as some sort of Plant Festival was going on. This is the area you buy your tickets. The gift store and museum is also here.
More Banyan. But is it one or many? Yes, it is many. Planted in the late 1920s, it is considered to be one of the largest banyan trees in the continental United States.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, Banyan Vines was a major player in the network operating systems area. The U.S. Marine Corps standardized on it. But information technology is a rough business and the combination of a better architecture and with marketing from a company the size of Microsoft doomed VINES as an OS, and finally Banyan itself. It was gone by the year 2000.
Edison's study. Where is the 70-inch flat screen TV? The luxurious electrical-powered reclining chair? The big computer monitor? The swag from Edison's favorite NFL team?
This is the Edison Main House, known as "Seminole Lodge".
The present site dates from 1885, when Edison first visited Southwest Florida and purchased more than 13 acres along the Caloosahatchee River to build a vacation home. He had traveled down to St. Augustine, Florida during the winter of 1885 at the behest of his doctor, who thought that the warmer climate would help cure an illness that Edison was suffering from. After recuperating in St. Augustine, he ended up traveling first across the state to Cedar Key, and from Cedar Key to Fort Myers. Edison returned to Fort Myers in 1886 with his new bride, Mina Miller Edison. His home, completed in 1886 and later dubbed "Seminole Lodge", served as a winter retreat and place of relaxation until Edison's death in 1931. In 1947, Mrs. Mina Edison deeded the Edison property to the City of Fort Myers in memory of her husband for the enjoyment of the public. It was opened for public tours soon after.
Edison's good friend Henry Ford purchased the adjoining property, "The Mangoes" from Robert Smith of New York in 1916. Ford's craftsman style bungalow was built in 1911 by Smith. In 1988, the adjacent Henry Ford winter estate was purchased and opened for public tours in 1990.
Nearly all of the furnishings in the Edison Main House and Guest House are original to the Edison family.
The original design of the Main House included a kitchen and dining room. In 1906, the Edisons remodeled these rooms to serve as family bedroom suites, since the newly renovated Guest House had a kitchen. The Main House includes a library, study, bedrooms and Edison’s den.
Henry Ford’s Winter Estate, known as "The Mangoes". In 1914, Henry and Clara Ford, along with their son Edsel, visited Fort Myers at the invitation of Thomas Edison. They enjoyed the visit so much that two years later, Ford purchased the home adjacent to the Edison Winter Estate. The two-story riverfront home was built in the Craftsman architectural style. The Ford’s sold The Mangoes in 1945 to a private family who then sold the estate to the City of Fort Myers in the late 1980s. The Ford Winter Estate was opened to the public in 1990.
Next we toured the Museum. I was surprised by how good it was, covering by lives of Edison and Ford in detail, with lots of artifacts.
Here is an immaculate example of the famous Model T.
During the period of 1914–1918 (World War I), Edison became concerned with America's reliance on foreign supplies of rubber. He partnered with Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford to try to find a rubber tree or plant that could grow quickly in the United States and provide a domestic supply of rubber. In 1927, the three men contributed $25,000 each and created the Edison Botanic Research Corporation in an attempt to find a solution to this problem. In 1928, the Edison Botanic Research Corporation laboratory was constructed. It was in Fort Myers, Florida that Mr. Edison would do the majority of his research and planting of his exotic plants and trees.
After testing over 17,000 plant samples, Edison eventually discovered a source in one of the species of flowering goldenrod, Solidago leavenworthii. Thomas Edison died in 1931 and the rubber project was transferred to the United States Department of Agriculture five years later.
