The most important day in Fort Myers history, many believe, was March 6, 1885, when Thomas Alva Edison landed in what was then a sleepy tropical village on Florida's west coas
…t. Edison, then 38 years old and widely known for his invention of the incandescent lamp and the phonograph, came for rest and sunshine and to shake off a lingering illness. His health recovered, he purchased a small house and 14 acres on the banks of the Caloosahatchee River. The following year, he was joined by his bride, Minnie Miller Edison, and then by such famous guests as Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone thrusting the quiet settlement into the headlines and launching the tourist industry that has transformed it into a thriving city. For 50 years the Edisons, whose main residence was in West Orange, N.J., spent the winter and spring in Fort Myers. A decade after the inventor's death in 1931, his widow willed the Florida home to the city. These days, about 380,000 people come annually from all over the United States and abroad,to tour the estate, which now comprises five buildings, including a museum of Edison's inventions. Unlike some of the lavish, fanciful retreats built by magnates in other Florida cities, the Edison Winter Home illuminates the work as well as the life style of the owner. Even travelers totally untutored in science who view the home, laboratory and botanical gardens will recognize that this was indeed the residence of a genius. In its way, this is another Monticello. The first sight one sees on leaving the parking lot is the celebrated banyan tree: what appears to be a blockwide forest of separate trunks are in fact aerial roots of the same plant. This vast, mysterious grove, like an Art Nouveau vision of entwined stems, branches and roots capped by an emerald canopy, was a sapling when Edison planted it in 1925. A sign explains that it was sent from India, a gift from Harvey Firestone, the tire manufacturer, introducing the visitor to an intriguing chapter in Edison's life in Florida: his efforts to create a domestic source of natural rubber. (MORE) 
