Did you know? In 1927, Thomas Edison and his wife, Mina Miller Edison, stopped at Hotel Venice to have lunch with Ft. Myers developer James D. Newton to discuss the future of growing, farming, and cultivating rubber as an economic driver in the south. “I am interested in finding out how much water and fertilizer it will require to produce healthy, generous, latex-giving plant[s]. Those plants I am now experimenting with, in my opinion, give a finer quality of rubber than that obtained from the trees,” Edison told Newton. Adding that Mr. Ford was interested in supporting his ideas, Edison was convinced commercial rubber production in Florida would be profitable. Read the full 1927 article through Venice Museum & Archives ➡️veniceflmuseum.newspaperarchive.com #flashbackfriday #100yearsofvenice #venicecentennial #veniceat100