the northeast, using wood from the northeast,
then they shipped the pieces down here on
barges. Once they arrived, they assembled
them on site.
“These were the fi rst ‘prefab’ houses in the
area,” said Edison and Ford Winter Estates
APR, Marketing & Public Relations Director
Lisa Wilson. “There wasn’t any real source
for lumber at that time, so he didn’t have a
choice.”
All of the original buildings are still
standing, including the homes, the guest
house, the caretaker’s building, Edison’s
study, the garage complete with Ford
automobiles, a river pavilion, and a large
laboratory which looked as if Edison just
walked away for an afternoon siesta. There
are test tubes, vials, bottles of every shape
and size, along with the machines that he
designed with workbenches for the dozen or
so scientists that worked alongside him.
His laboratory was stocked with 8,000
kinds of chemicals, every kind of screw made
and, oddly enough, various kinds of hooves,
shark’s teeth, deer horns, tortoise shells and
peacock tails.
A possible explanation for those last items
lies in a quote from Edison in 1906. He said,
“I have always found nature ready for any
emergency and based on this confi dence
that she has never betrayed, I communed
diligently with her.”
Many inventions are on full display and
include original phonographs, projectors,
battery packs, cars, jukeboxes, even an
original talking doll.
Edison visited Florida primarily in the
winter months, and could always be found
in Fort Myers on his birthday, February 11. It
would be interesting to know if his opinion
of Southwest Florida’s “perfect air” would
be different after he experienced a typical
Florida summer – complete with humidity,
palmetto bugs, and mosquitoes.
After losing his fi rst wife in 1884, Tom
Edison met Mina Miller. Edison was 39, twice
Mina’s age, but he was smitten. According
to Edison, he taught Mina Morse code and
proposed marriage by tapping out the
message on her palm. To his astonishment,
she said yes.
66 GASPARILLA MAGAZINE • November/December • 2021
Mina at her beloved koi pond in the Moonlight Garden.
Edison and the refi ned and worldly Mina
spent their honeymoon not in France or
Vienna, but in the swamplands of Southwest
Florida. By all accounts, Mina was a good
sport and set her intention on becoming not
a housewife, but a partner to her husband.
Mina Edison was a force of nature in her
own right. Championing such causes as
educating the African American children of
Lee County, she was also passionate about
environmental issues, the use of natural
resources and horticulture and birds.
Today, the estate offers classes for
children and adults that would make Mina
and Thomas proud. From robotics and
etiquette classes for children to gardening,
art, wellness, and history for adults, the class
topics are impressive and interesting
Always thinking a few steps ahead was the
hallmark of any great inventor. One of the
concerns of the day was rubber. Enter Henry
Ford.
Henry Ford was 16 years younger than
Thomas Edison, the man who would become
not just a mentor, but a close friend. Their
relationship was close enough that he would
purchase a home next door to Edison’s,
and together Edison and Ford turned their
friendship into a pursuit of a new source of
rubber.
Concerned that a war might cut off
America’s supply of rubber from the Pacifi c,
the two geniuses thought about it and
decided that it was critical to fi nd a natural
source of rubber that could be grown in
the United States. Thus began a collection
of every tree and plant known to mankind,