If One Man Gets His Way, You Could Soon Tour the Inventor Tesla's Old Lab

Nikola Tesla's old laboratory -- Wardenclyffe -- sits on a plot of land in Shoreham, New York, where the scientist once sought to create a global system for wireless communication. With funding for Tesla's project from J.P. Morgan ending in the early 1900s, the tower he was building to achieve this goal was demolished and the land sold.

Now, the land is up for sale again and one man is leading the charge to help a non-profit purchase it and create the country's first Tesla museum. This man is Matthew Inman, owner of The Oatmeal blog. The pricetag on the land is $1.6 million, but with the state saying it would provide a matching grant, PC Mag reports Inman only has to raise $850,000. With more than 40 days left to raise the money, he's already more than half way there.

PC Mag calls Inman's efforts to spread the word to raise the funds an "amusing plea for help." Inman has launched his campaign on all the viral social media channels and other Web platforms. To interest his intended audience, he created a cartoon story on his blog describing Tesla -- "the greatest geek who ever lived" -- and his achievements that merit a museum. Here are a few screenshots of his blog post, but be sure to check out the full thing here.

Inman also notes that while $850,000 would help secure the land, more donations are welcome to get construction of the actual museum off to a good start. Inman puts out a personal call to specific companies and celebrities who may have a stake in this museum on his blog.

According to Jalopnik, Inman's personal request to Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has been answered. Musk said in an email although it wasn't "a good use of Tesla corp funds [...] I'm personally open to the idea," citing the fact that Tesla is a hero of his.

If you're not convinced that Tesla deserves a whole museum, Inman also pulls together in another blog post (Note: some strong language) many of Tesla's inventions and other reasons why he was "the greatest geek who ever lived." These include, but are not limited to, alternating current providing electrical power as we know it, experiments with cryogenic engineering and neon lighting.

See the full blog post by Inman and/or find donation options here.

As of the time of this posting, Inman had helped raise more than $494,000 and has 44 days left to reach the goal.

(H/T: Huffington Post)