Menlo Park, New Jersey was officially changed to Edison Township on November 10, 1954, in honor of the inventor. Menlo Park, New Jersey Menlo Park is an unincorporated community located within Edison Township in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. In 1876, Thomas Edison set up his home and research laboratory in Menlo Park, which at the time was the site of an unsuccessful real estate development named after the town of Menlo Park, California. While there, he earned the nickname "the Wizard of Menlo Park". The Menlo Park lab was significant in that it was one of the first laboratories to pursue practical,
Menlo Park, California on the former Rancho de las Pulgas. In 1854, they erected a gate with a wooden arch bearing the inscription "Menlo Park" and the date "August 1854" at the entrance to their property (now the intersection of Middle Ave and El Camino Real). The word "Menlo" derived from the owners' former home of Menlo in County Galway, Ireland, and is an Anglicized version of the original Irish name of the place, "Mionloch", meaning "middle lake." In 1863, the San Francisco and San Jose Rail Road had built the railroad from San Francisco to as far as Mayfield (now California Avenue