Prior to Edison's association with Menlo Park, it was a small, relatively unknown country hamlet on the Pennsylvania Railroad line from New York to Philadelphia. In the years before the move, Edison's laboratory and shops were in rented buildings in Newark. We don’t know why Edison moved out of the city but he said "the cause of this move was trouble I had about rent." However, in April 1878, he told a reporter from the Philadelphia Times "I couldn't get peace and quiet in Newark and was run down by visitors." In late 1875, looking for land on which he could build a laboratory to his own specifications, Edison’s father was looking around the New Jersey countryside for real estate. Samuel Edison discovered Menlo Park, which had been part of a failed residential development and in December 1875 Edison moved to Menlo Park, twelve miles south of Newark.
