Let's see. What historical figure do I want to highlight today on The Last Word? Oh! A light bulb just went off in my head. I've got it! Thomas Edison. I want to know what connections he had to the City of Erie.
Let's go back to 1887. The Edison Electric Light and Power Company begins offering incandescent lighting to the city. Remnants of the company's power station can still be seen on French Street between 10th and Eleventh Streets. Mark Tanenbaum, an Erie history buff, tells me that the Erie plant was built only five years after Edison constructed his first power plant.
"I think he originally did one in New York City and then expanded other ones in the State of Pennsylvania. Erie had one of them," Mark says proudly.
Let's not forget about Erie naming a school after Edison in the 1930s. The school district kept the name when they replaced that old school this year. It was a three-year construction project.
“At no point during the course of that was there a conversation to rename Edison after somebody else or something else. It wasn’t even brought up as a topic of discussion,” says Neal Brokman, Assistant Superintendent of Operations, Erie’s Public Schools.
On October 22, 1929, E...