Louisville Travel Guide

Thomas Edison's House

Thomas Edison, inventor of the incandescent electric light bulb, lived in the house on East Washington Street in 1866 when he was only 19 years old and had yet to receive acclaim for his many inventions. When Edison lived in Louisville he worked for the Western Union as a telegraph operator on Second and West Main Street, a few blocks from the house. Today the simple cottage, built around 1850, has been restored as a museum housing interesting artefacts like cylinder and disc phonographs, a kinetoscope, the first home motion picture projector, numerous versions of the light bulb and other inventions patented by Edison.