Fort Myers: the winter of Edison and Ford

On the Gulf Coast of Florida, Fort Myers holds the winter residences of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, who were neighbors for decades.

A car remains useful for reaching the historic estates.

The Edison and Ford Winter Estates, neighboring properties on the Caloosahatchee River, house the laboratories where Edison experimented with natural rubber together with Ford and Firestone.

A short drive away, the historic River District downtown comes alive with art galleries and restaurants in restored early twentieth-century buildings overlooking the river.

Heading toward the coast, you reach the beaches of Fort Myers Beach, facing the calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and popular with winter tourists.

In the evening, the Caloosahatchee riverfront animates with long walks offering views of sunsets typical of Florida's west coast.

Thomas Edison purchased his winter estate in Fort Myers in 1885, later persuading his friend Henry Ford to buy the adjacent property, where the two innovators spent dozens of winters together.

In the botanical gardens of the estates grows the largest banyan tree in all of North America, personally planted by Edison himself in the early 1900s.