# Edison dies in West Orange; the laboratory becomes a public historic site later

Date: 1931

## The fact

On 18 October 1931 [Edison](/people/thomas-edison) died at West Orange. The laboratory closed as a private invention factory. The site later became Thomas Edison National Historical Park, which publishes history and preserves notebooks. This Fact stores the end of private control and the later public-record path without mixing them into a miracle.

## Context

He did not designate a UNESCO listing. NPS enabling legislation is later. Contribution is complex and small on the park itself.

Thomas Edison is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

NPS and Britannica independently date the death and describe the preserved laboratory.

Official or archival record: Thomas Edison National Historical Park — history (https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/historyculture/index.htm; U.S. National Park Service).

## Significance

Knowledge-access path through an archive-site. High confidence on the death date; medium on park-visit welfare.

Do not treat a death as a utility. The park is the public instrument.

## What is established and what is not

Established: death 18 October 1931 at West Orange; later public preservation of the laboratory. Not established: that death itself improved energy security.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Thomas Edison: https://factrail.ai/people/thomas-edison

## Drivers

- Digital Learning Access: https://factrail.ai/drivers/edu-digital-learning-access

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Edison
- https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/historyculture/index.htm

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/us-edison-death-estate-1931