Edison, NJ news and local guide

In 1876 Thomas Edison set up his home and research laboratory on the site of a failed real estate development in the township called Menlo Park, now Edison State Park, and became known as the Wizard of Menlo Park. The laboratory was one of the first to pursue practical, commercial uses of research, and there he developed the phonograph and a commercially viable incandescent light bulb filament. Christie Street became the first street in the world lit by electric lights. Edison moved his home and laboratory to West Orange in 1886. After World War I broke out, the manufacturer Lewis Nixon built a large chemical processing plant, the Nixon Nitration Works, in a part of the township informally called Nixon, and in 1924 an explosion and fire there killed 20 people and destroyed several square miles. In 1954 the township was renamed in honor of Thomas A. Edison, after a ballot on which a proposal to rename it Nixon failed. The Menlo Park Mall opened on U.S. Route 1 in 1959, and Edison grew into one of New Jersey's largest municipalities. Sources Wikipedia: Edison, New Jersey