The Edison Museum, a science and history museum about the life and inventions of

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...

, is located in

Beaumont, Texas Beaumont is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the seat of government of Jefferson County, within the Beaumont– Port Arthur metropolitan statistical area, located in Southeast Texas on the Neches River about east of Houston ( ...

at 350 Pine St. on the grounds of Edison Plaza.

Building

The museum building was formerly the

Gulf States Utilities Entergy Texas (formerly Gulf States Utilities (GSU)) is an electric power generation and distribution company headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas. The company was founded in 1911 as Eastern Texas Electric, a holding company for Stone & Webster. ...

Travis Street Power Substation. The power substation came on line in 1929. According to the ''Texas State Historical Marker'' in front of the substation building, the substation provided power ranging from street lights to cotton gins to rice irrigation to refineries in spite of

The Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

Museum

"...The museum is the only facility of its kind west of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

..." Interactive exhibits about Edison, his inventions and innovations, as well as historic artifacts from his life are featured. Featured inventions include the

incandescent light bulb An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxi ...

, the

phonograph A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

, and some of Edison's early

motion pictures A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

. There is also a reference library about Edison. The collection origin is tied to W. Donham Crawford, former

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of ''Gulf States Utilities''. Crawford was an avid collector of Edison artifacts. The collection was bequeathed to the museum in the early 1980s by Crawford's widow. The museum is part of a concentration of several museums in the downtown Beaumont area. It is located blocks away from the Tyrrell Historical Library, the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, the Beaumont Children's Museum (temporarily located in the Beaumont Civic Center), and the

Fire Museum of Texas The Fire Museum of Texas is located in a former fire station, the former Central Fire Station, in Beaumont, Texas, built in 1927. The building is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, and is an example of the Renaissance Revival. The building hou ...

References

External links

Edison Museum
- official site {{Thomas Edison Museums in Beaumont, Texas History museums in Texas Thomas Edison Biographical museums in Texas Technology museums in Texas Telecommunications museums in the United States Science museums in Texas

Building

Museum

See also

References

External links