Steamboat Museum Radio Controlled Riverboat Hall photo by E.J. Drown THOMAS A. EDISON 1 / 24 Scale Built in 1904 (L.O.A. = 94 feet, Beam = 22 feet) at Appalachicola, Florida, for J. Fred and Conrad Menges, she ran passengers and light freight on the Caloosahatchee River between Ft. Myers and Thompson, piloted by Captain Nick Armeda. She was tied up at the Lee County Packing House with a full load of fruit on the night of January 30, 1914 at low tide. The packing house caught fire and was destroyed; the THOMAS A. EDISON, hard aground, went with it. The engines and machinery were recovered by order of Henry Ford and now power the stern-wheel steamer SUWANEE, carrying tourists at Ford's Greenfield Museum Village near Dearborn, Michigan. Model built by Ralph Lossing from plans by John L. Fryant and is electric powered and radio-controlled. (J.L. Fryant is a nationally known steamboat and riverboat historian who has researched and drawn many plans for boats, and has built a number of models now in the Smithsonian collection.) next