Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana People

Thomas Edison

  1. Thomas Edison, a famous contemporary and admirer of Abraham Lincoln, was only a teenager when the Civil War erupted. In...

    Posted by Lincoln Collection on Friday, January 10, 2025

    Friday, January 10, 2025 post by the Lincoln Collection on Facebook:

    Thomas Edison, a famous contemporary and admirer of Abraham Lincoln, was only a teenager when the Civil War erupted. In 1862, at 15, he obtained his first job as a telegraph operator. The telegraph was an important communication method that was critical during the war, quickly transmitting information from the front to President Lincoln and his Secretary of War. Throughout the Civil War, Edison worked in different cities as a telegraph operator, including Fort Wayne, IN. Following the war, Edison received multiple patents for improvements to the telegraph.

    Edison continued to experiment, and at the end of the 1880s, he got the idea to create a motion picture camera, although the work of inventing it fell to his associate William Dickson. In the early 1890s, the motion picture camera called a Kinetograph, debuted in New York City and quickly spread to other cities. One of the early films produced by Edison was a film about Abraham Lincoln’s life called The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Within the U.S., Edison was awarded 1,093 patents.

    For more information on Thomas Edison from the Lincoln Collection's vertical files, visit:

    Abraham Lincoln's contemporaries by Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, Publication date 1923 on Archive.org

  2. March 9, 2017 post by Allen County Public Library on Facebook.

    Did you know Thomas Edison lived in Fort Wayne? He lived on the Landing at Columbia and Calhoun streets in 1864 when he was 17 years old while working as a telegraph operator for the railroad. That building was torn down in 1980.

    Thomas Edison in Fort Wayne published July 12, 2016 and The Landing and Columbia Street published April 11, 2013 both by Tom Castaldi, local historianin the History Center Notes & Queries blog.

    [Transcontinental telegraph was completed only three years earlier on October 24, 1861]

  3. July 12, 2016 post by The History Center on Facebook:

    This week Tom Castaldi talks about Thomas Edison's time in Fort Wayne!

  4. Thomas A. Edison was born in Milan, OH, in 1847, and grew up in Port Huron, MI. Approximately two decades after Samuel F. B. Morse sent the first telegraphic message in 1844, Thomas Edison worked as a telegraph operator. He based two of his earliest inventions—an electric vote recorder (Patent No. 90,646) and stock "ticker" (Patent No. 140,488)—on telegraph technology. Copied from U.S. Census Bureau History: Thomas Edison.

  5. February 19, 2018 post by The History Center on Facebook:

    140 years ago today, Thomas Edison was granted a patent for the phonograph. The phonograph’s ability to relay recorded sound changed the way the public used and consumed entertainment and information. Local companies including Magnavox and Capehart-Farnsworth took advantage of this new ability and began designing, manufacturing, and selling some of the best phonograph-radio consoles on the early-mid twentieth century market. Eventually, manufacturers combined recorded picture with recorded sound in combination phonograph-projectors, which melded two of the most important entertainment innovations of the turn of the century.

    Local businesses sold phonographs, records, consoles, and accessories to provide Fort Wayne residents with audible enjoyment. Residents of the Summit City who purchased phonographs or consoles utilized this invention in new ways as it became a more common appliance in stores and homes. Although today it seems trivial to record and replay sound on devices that fit in our pockets, it was not long ago that people had to work much harder to create, synthesize, and enjoy audible entertainment. #sociallyhistory

  6. A photo of a Young Thomas Edison is on The Landing with Audio: “The Landing” featuring Tom Castaldi. Courtesy of WBNI-Fort Wayne. by Central Downtown Trail 19 stops on the Heritage Trail by ARCH ( Architecture and Community Heritage).

  7. April 9, 2019 post by The Landing Fort Wayne on Facebook:

    "On the upper floor of the business on the northwest corner of Columbia and Calhoun streets, Thomas Edison lived for a short time when, in 1864, he worked for the railroad as a telegraph operator. That building was destroyed in 1980. In the same building, which in later years was called the Old Drug Company, druggist Joseph and Cornelius Hoagland and their partner Thomas Biddle developed the formula that became Royal Baking Powder. Elsewhere, the west end of Columbia Street became famous for its hotels, such as the Wayne and the Randall." via The History Center

  8. Thomas Edison passed away in New Jersey on October 18, 1931, at age 84. See The Cincinnati Enquirer Cincinnati, Ohio 19 Oct 1931, Monday, Page 1 on Newspapers.com.
  9. 6 Key Inventions by Thomas Edison Edison's genius was improving on others' technologies and making them more practical for the general public by Patrick J. Kigermar posted March 6, 2020 on History.com.
  10. Edison's career as a telegraph operator began when he saved the station agent's young son from the path of a moving freight car. Out of gratitude the father taught Edison the new science of telegraphy. By the time he was seventeen, Edison was "on the road" as a telegraph operator. He drifted from Stratford, Canada, to Adrian, Michigan, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Boston. Copied from 3.) Extended Biography: By Dr. Edwin Reilly Jr. at Thomas Alva Edison The accomplishments and life of electrical engineer and entrepreneur Thomas Edison, 1847-1931 at Edison Tech Center.
  11. Some fun facts: After being fired from his Union Depot job in Indianapolis, Tom Edison moved to Cincinnati, then to Louisville. The teenager was fired from jobs in various cities besides Indy and Fort Wayne. Hank will share insights about why young Edison was able to land new jobs despite a string of dismissals in his past. Copied from Thomas Edison's links to Indiana May 5, 2012 broadcast show at Archives of Hoosier History Live podcast on Saturdays, noon to 1 p.m. ET on WICR 88.7 FM.
  12. December 30, 2023 discussion on True Fort Wayne Indiana History on Facebook. One comment mentioned Education of an Inventor - Itinerant Telegrapher in the Thomas A. Edison papers in the Rutgers-New Brunswick School of Arts and Sciences. One paragraph: After losing his job at Stratford Junction, Edison moved on to Adrian, Michigan, where he worked in the office of the division superintendent of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad. From there, Edison kept moving, working in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Indianapolis, Indiana; Cincinnati, Ohio; Nashville, Tennessee, and Louisville, Kentucky.

  13. It's #waybackwednesday! Did you know that Einstein made a stop in Fort Wayne?! As described colorfully by the...

    Posted by Genealogy Center on Wednesday, April 3, 2024

    Wednesday, April 3, 2024 post by the Genealogy Center on Facebook:

    It's #waybackwednesday! Did you know that Einstein made a stop in Fort Wayne?! As described colorfully by the News-Sentinel, "the bushy haired exponent of the theory of relativity" made a brief stop here after a reception in Chicago. 🧠🔬

    Check out this image and more in our Community Album: http://contentdm.acpl.lib.in.us/

    (1931, March 3). "Prof. Einstein, Tired But Smiling, Makes Stop in Fort Wayne". The News Sentinel, p. 8.

    [ Thomas Edison when a 17-year-old was living in 1864 Fort Wayne on The Landing! ]

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