Elevators

Elisha Graves Otis was born on a farm near Halifax, Vermont, were he was the youngest of six children. Elisha made several attempts at establishing businesses in his early years. Elisha was chronically poor health led to continual financial woes. As an adult in 1845 he was inspired to design what was then called the “safety elevator” when he was asked to move equipment into the warehouse of his employer, a New York bed factory. Most of the elevators at the time were extremely dangerous. Elisha employer needed an elevator that would carry people and equipment safely to the upper floors of its new building. Elisha tried to change his luck with a move to Allbany, New York. There he worked as a master mechanic in the bedstead factory of O. Tingley & Company. During the three year stay he invented and put to use a railway safety brake, which could be controlled by the engineer, and ingenious devices to run rails for four poster beds and to improve the operation of turbine wheels. By 185...