History of Elevators Timeline

Edward B. Ellington founded the Wharves and Warehouses Steam Power and Hydraulic Pressure Company in 1871; it became the London Hydraulic Power Company in 1883.

Schuyler Wheeler patented an electric elevator design.

David Humphreys of Norfolk, Virginia, patented an elevator whose automatic doors closed off the shaft when the car was elsewhere.

Alexander Miles of Duluth, Minnesota, patented automatic doors that prevented access to the elevator shaft unless the car was present.

Joseph Kelly and William L. Woods co-patented automatically opening and closing hatches to guard elevator shafts as cars passed through them.

Otis installed the first elevator in India at Government House in Calcutta.

A Chicago physician documented elevator sickness, an early medical observation associated with vertical travel.

Sprague installed 584 elevators before selling his company to the Otis Elevator Company.

Consulting engineer Charles G. Darrach proposed the first formula for determining elevator service.

Reginald P. Bolton published Elevator Service, the first book devoted to elevator service analysis.

Edmund F. Tweedy and Arthur Williams co-authored Commercial Engineering for Central Stations, contributing to the developing engineering literature surrounding elevator systems.

Howard B. Cook presented a paper titled Passenger Elevator Service.

Bassett Jones published The Probable Number of Stops Made by an Elevator.

Bassett Jones updated his equations to account for variable population on each floor.

Manufacturers including Otis and Westinghouse introduced DC gearless traction machines during the 1930s.

Strakosch described an eight-step method for finding elevator-system efficiency in Vertical Transportation: Elevators and Escalators.

Barney and Dos Santos developed and published the Round Trip Time formula, extending earlier work on elevator traffic analysis.

The widely used elevator traffic simulator Elevate was first showcased as Elevate Lite.

Peters published Improvements to the Up Peak Round Trip Time Calculation, improving flight-time accuracy and adding allowances for short journeys and express zones.

At the first Elevator and Escalator Symposium, Al-Sharif proposed a simulation model that modeled one car round trip before restarting the process.

Al-Sharif improved the simulation model by reintroducing a dispatcher-like function capable of modeling destination control systems.

By 1900, completely automated elevators were available, although passengers initially remained reluctant to use them without operators.

A 1945 elevator operator strike in New York City helped accelerate public acceptance of automated elevators, alongside emergency controls and explanatory automated voices.

Leo Port of Sydney originally conceived the idea of destination control, although relay-based controllers of the period could not optimize its allocations.

An ASME A17.1 Elevator Safety Code change required a second dished bulkhead, addressing risks associated with older single-bulkhead hydraulic cylinders.

More detailed elevator displays began appearing in the early 1990s, including Otis's electroluminescent display; LCD displays became more common in the 21st century.

Schindler Elevator pioneered practical destination control in 1992 with the Miconic 10 system.

Kone introduced the MonoSpace, described as the world's first machine-room-less elevator.

The first vacuum elevator was offered commercially in Argentina.

TK Elevator invented TWIN, a system with two elevator cars operating independently in a single shaft.

Machine-room-less elevators were recognized in the 2005 supplement to the 2004 A17.1 Elevator Code.