Thomas Edison Depot Museum

In Port Huron, Michigan, the old Grand Trunk Railway depot where Thomas Edison worked as a teenage newsboy and candy vendor is now a museum dedicated to his early years. Edison was born in Milan, Ohio in eighteen forty-seven but grew up in Port Huron. At twelve years old he talked his way onto the daily train to Detroit, selling newspapers and candy to passengers.

He used the baggage car as a rolling chemistry laboratory until, by the common account, a fire broke out and the conductor threw him and his equipment off the train. In Port Huron he also set up a small newspaper, printed on a press in the baggage car, often described as the first newspaper published on a moving train. The depot museum preserves that story, situated at the spot where the young Edison commuted daily across the St.

Clair River corridor at the gateway between Michigan and Canada.