Light Bill Is Trouble At Edison Birthplace

The house where Thomas Edison was born is having trouble keeping the lights on.

The Thomas Edison Birthplace Museum hasn’t missed a payment yet on its $700-a-year electric bill. “But like all non-profits, we have a great deal of trouble making ends meet,” museum curator Larry Russell said Tuesday.

Russell has a bright idea: He wants the Village Council to help pay the electric bill at the 155-year-old, two-story red brick house in this community of 1,460 people.

That “would be an appropriate way to help, considering we owe Edison,” Russell said. “He gave us the electrical system we have today.”

Edison, who invented the light bulb in 1879 in Menlo Park, N.J., was born Feb. 11, 1847, in Milan (pronounced MY-lun). He lived in the house until age 7, when his family moved to Port Huron, Mich.