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Could Thomas Edison Have Built His Lab in Memphis?
He might never have become “The Wizard of Menlo Park” if not for a jealous supervisor
Elon Musk recently announced plans to build a “Gigafactory of Compute” in Memphis. The building will house the world’s largest supercomputer, the power behind Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI.
More than 150 years ago, another genius creator and entrepreneur was in Memphis. If not for one man, he might have eventually built his headquarters there and become “The Wizard of the Mid-South” rather than “The Wizard of Menlo Park.”
The early 1860s found teenaged Thomas Edison (1847–1931) working the railroad as a news butcher, selling newspapers and candy to passengers. He saved a 3-year-old boy’s life on the tracks in 1862. To thank him, the boy’s father offered to train Edison as a telegraph operator, a skill then in increasingly heavy demand.
In 1865, Edison was hired by the federal occupation army in Memphis. Although the telegraph was nearly 30 years old at that point, it could not send communications over very long distances without human help. Edison was hired to act as a repeater — he would receive telegrams and re-key them, forwarding them one step closer to their destination.
