"The Wizard of Menlo Park"
Twenty-nine years old at the time he moved to Menlo Park, Edison was already a successful inventor and businessman. One of the reasons he chose to set up shop in Menlo Park was that it provided a quiet, rural setting where he and his colleagues could work without distraction, yet it was not far from a railroad connection to New York, a mere 25 miles away, allowing him easy access to his backers and corporate sponsors.

• Thomas Edison and the Making of America