Fort Myers, FL

Fort Myers owes its character to a house guest. In 1885 Thomas Edison, aged 38 and overworked, sailed up the Caloosahatchee, bought riverfront land and built Seminole Lodge, his winter home and laboratory for the next four decades; his friend Henry Ford promptly bought the house next door. The Edison and Ford Winter Estates are now the city's treasure — the laboratory where Edison hunted for domestic rubber in goldenrod, the moonlight garden, and a banyan tree he planted that has grown into one of the largest in the continental United States. Edison also gave the city its look, lining McGregor Boulevard with royal palms; hundreds now make the "City of Palms" avenue one of Florida's stateliest drives.

The modern city is the gateway to Gulf-coast paradise — the shelling beaches of Sanibel and Captiva lie across the causeway — and a baseball town each March, when spring training fills its ballparks. The archive's stage is the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall on the college campus south of town, Southwest Florida's principal theatre for touring Broadway, orchestras and opera since 1986. Sunshine as a business plan, genius as a founding legend: Fort Myers is Florida with a laboratory attached.