Thomas Alva Edison built his winter estate in Ft. Myers, Florida in the 1880s, before the train even came to the region. His house was built with pre-cut timber shipped from Maine, delivered to this pier on the Caloosahatchee River.
The Edison and Ford Winter Estates are a window in time, with inventions and living spaces dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The light bulb, the phonograph, the motion picture and the storage battery are only a few of Edison’s inventions. In the museum, I was taken with this interpretive sign:
Edison and the Storage Battery
1872 to 1931
When he applied for his first storage battery patent in 1872, Edison believed travel by horse was doomed. An electric car would soon serve the nation’s transportation needs. Thus, he sought to perfect a storage battery to propel such a vehicle.
Two decades later, Edison’s vision of the future began to emerge. Steam and electric vehicles first appeared on the scene in the 1890s (the internal combustion, gasoline-powered engine would not enter the fray of the automotive era until the 20th century). Another display in the Edison & Ford Winter Estates Museum reads as follows:
Advantages of Motor over Horse Vehicles
I. ECONOMY
(a) OF MONEY
1. Cheap upkeep.
2. Consumes nothing while idle.
3. Requires less stable room, permitting smaller housing.
4. Requires fewer men to care for, or groom.
5. Longer life.
6. In light small package delivery it does the work of two or more wagons, reducing force of men to deliver same, because it carries more load and goes twice faster than a horse.
(b) OF TIME
1. Delivers in much quicker time than a horse.
2. Return trip to distributing centre at high speed.
3. Can work unlimited portion of day.
4. Requires no days of rest.
5. Easily handled in congested traffic, at good speeds.
6. As garages are permitted where stables would not be, it permits more convenient and nearer stabling, nearer to distribution centre.
7. Develops power despite weather and road conditions.
8. Can be worked overtime for holiday trade.
(c) OF SPACE
1. In stable.
2. In street.
3. In loading space at warehouse, permitting mroe wagons to load at same time.
II. OTHER ADVANTAGES
(a) INTENSIVE
1. Fewer wagons, on account of higher speed, will do work.
2. Fewer men will take care of same delivery unit.
3. Consumes only when in actual service.
(b) EXTENSIVE
1. Permits larger radius of delivery, meaning possible extension of free delivery limits, yet at low cost.
III. AND SOME GOOD REASONS
1. Motor transportation would go far to solve traction and congestion traffic problems for everybody.
2. Less damage to roads.
3. Dirt, dust and manure would disappear.
4. Permits the accurate and easy determination of costs.
At the museum as I ogled this display, a gentleman beside me chuckled. “Aha, I too see the advantages. No more horse apples.”