FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Thomas Edison and Henry Ford are known for their power generation and automotive innovations respectively, but they were also at the forefront of a highly popular trend in Florida.
Edison visited Fort Myers in 1885 after doctors suggested spending time in Florida’s warm climate for health reasons, and built a house along the Karosa Hatchie River the following year. Ford visited many southwest Florida to see Edison and bought the property next door in 1916.
Southwest Florida will be a holiday spot, said Lisa Wilson, marketing director for Edison and Ford Winter Estates. Edison spent most of the year in New Jersey, and Ford lived in Michigan.
“They came here to get away from the cold like many snowbirds today. But they worked when they were here, so it wasn’t just a holiday time,” Wilson said.
In front of the spring breaker
Fort Myers is essentially a group of farmers living in abandoned military forts, said Isaac Hunter, historian of the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, who used veterinarian lamps for light when Edison first visited.
“The following year he built the house and then installed a generator in the street,” Hunter said. “We had about 350 residents, and almost everyone came to the property to see the lights turned on.”
Edison never moved the rest of the city, but his illuminated home gave his neighbor an appetite for electricity, Hunter said. About ten years later, local businessmen purchased generators for cannery and ultimately developed a rudimentary grid to power the city.
Edison’s first connection to Ford came in 1891 when Ford was working as an engineer at the Edison Lighting Company in Detroit, Hunter said. Although direct contact with Edison had nothing to do with this work, we eventually met at a meeting in 1896. Ford left the company to develop further car designs, but his praise for Edison continued.
“Henry Ford is a huge fan of Thomas Edison and when he started working on cars and became a bigger and bigger name in the world, he kept in touch with Thomas Edison, writing letters and asking for advice,” Hunter said.
They became friends in 1914 when Edison invited Ford and his family to Fort Myers.
Friends and neighbors
When Edison, Ford and another visitor, naturalist John Burrows, became acquainted in southwest Florida, they decided to go on a camping trip and set out for the Everglades in a Ford Model TS parade.
“There were no roads. The Tamiami Trail, the alleyways of the Crocodile did not exist in 1914,” Hunter said. “So they’re driving through the wilderness of Florida. They were on their way. Forest, the woods, the woods, they were miserable.”
They finished their camping trip at Edison Real Estate. The trip may not have been a complete success, but a decade-long tradition of travel across the United States began, and in 1916 he ended up buying the property next to Edison.
Harvey Firestone, founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, later joined Edison, Ford and Burroughs, and the quartet became known as the Vagabonds. The trip gave industrialists the opportunity to discuss business and ultimately reach the conclusion that the US needed its own source of rubber.
Where rubber meets the road
In addition to the obvious use of rubber in tires, it was used in virtually all industrial manufacturing.
“All these gentlemen, they used rubber every day,” Hunter said.
At the time, the US was purchasing latex and other plant rubber supplies from overseas, but the disruption in supply caused by World War I showed just how important it was for the US to have its own source. And because the rubber was made from plants, Edison, Ford and Firestone concluded that southwest Florida would be an ideal location for growing and testing many different plants.
They opened the Edison Plant Research Institute in 1927, testing over 17,000 different samples of rubber plants, Hunter said.
Edison eventually settled on Golden Rod as the best natural source of latex. He imagined farmers planting and harvesting crops, but this never happened. Edison passed away in 1931, and a few years later, the lab was closed around the time oil-based synthetic rubber was developed, Hunter said.
“This process, especially in your 30s, actually boosted production of rubber in the US, was cheaper and faster,” Hunter said.
A lasting legacy
Edison’s widow transferred his Florida property to the city of Fort Myers in 1947 for public use for $1, and opened it for tours some time later.
Nearby Ford property was sold and occupied as private homes for decades before the city bought it in 1988. The nonprofit took over the entire property management in 2003 and oversaw a $14 million restoration project.
“Thomas Edison and Henry Ford really put the city on the map. Today it’s an international tourist destination,” Wilson said.
Visitors can explore the museum that features some of Edison’s 1,093 patents, including gramophones and incandescent bulbs.
