In Menlo Park, New Jersey, the Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Museum marks the site where Edison established his pioneering laboratory in 1876 and developed hundreds of inventions that shaped his fame as the “Wizard of Menlo Park.” Work there included the successful 1879 bamboo filament lamp test, early phonograph experiments, telephone improvements using carbon, and an electric train test track. After Edison moved to West Orange in 1887 and the original buildings largely disappeared, the site became a memorial complex. Its centerpiece is a 131-foot Art Deco tower dedicated in 1938, and the museum in the original gatehouse preserves Edison artifacts and the history of the laboratory grounds.

Iselin, New Jersey · USA