The museum captures the life work of America's Inventor - Thomas Alva Edison. Through interactive exhibits, the story takes you through his childhood into his early work with telegraphy. Major inventions are detailed like the practical incandescent light bulb, cylinder phonograph and the motion picture camera. Edison personal life is explored with details about his nicknames for his children. The interactive exhibits include music, motion pictures, morse code simulation and a database of the 1.093 United States Patents issued to Thomas Edison.
Established in 1982 by Gulf States Utilities Company, the museum is housed in the historic Travis Street Sub Station, downtown Beaumont, Texas. The sub station was 'state of the art' December 1929 when it went on line powering the oil patch, in part. The museum is the oldest of the downtown museums. In 2002, the Edison Museum completed an interior renovation and installation of new interactive exhibits and was re-dedicated in September 2002.
The Edison Museum manages 1,500 items in its collection. Our collection covers the electric industry in Southeast Texas. We manage a few hundred items that directly relate to Thomas Edison.
A limited number of books on Thomas A. Edison.
We provide in school programming that covers Thomas Edison's career with a few hands-on elements: glass jar light bulb, morse code worksheet etc.