Edison High School - Wizard Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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»I 013NG EDISON soon became adept as a telegraph operator and his association with the telegraph focused his attention on electricity. In 1802 when he was fifteen years old, he got a job as a train dispatcher in the Port Huron telegraph office at twenty-five dollars a month. This was a night job and as young Edison spent nearly the whole day experimenting at home, he was always very sleepy at night. But here his inventive genius came to his rescue and incidentally lost him his job. As a check on Edison, his employer required him to send the letter “A” in Morse code to the operator in the next town every half hour. Edison rigged up a device which when connected with the alarm clock would send an excellent imitation of the letter “A” over the wires. Having installed this device, Edison proceeded to get his needed rest. All went well until one night the operator tried to call Edison back. He could get no response. Fearing that some great calamity had befallen Edison, he jumped on a handcar and hurried to the young inventor’s office. To his surprise he saw Edison sleeping soundly in a chair while on the table was a queer looking instrument and to add to his amazement, as the alarm struck the hour, the instrument opened the key, sent the letter “A,” and again closed the key. From this job Edison wandered to many others in the middle west until in 1868 he went to Boston where he first turned his thoughts seriously to the held of invention. Twenty-Six