Thomas Alva Edison, one of America's most prolific and important inventors, was born in this house in 1847. Designed by his father, Samuel Edison, a shingle maker by trade, the small gabled brick cottage was built in 1841. The Edisons moved to Port Huron, Michigan, in 1854, when he was seven, but Edison cherished memories of his early boyhood there and acquired the home from his sister's family in 1906. In 1947, the centennial of his birth, Edison's daughter Madeleine Edison Sloane opened the home to the public as a memorial to the great inventor. It became a registered National Historic Landmark in 1965.