The Escalation of Moving Stairs

The Escalation of Moving Stairs

Citywide Elevator Consulting focuses on more than just elevators. Escalators are just as essential in today’s society!  CEC specializes in a full range of services for ALL types of vertical transportation including new construction and modernization of major hotels, universities, government facilities, commercial and residential buildings and retail locations.

Thanks to the invention of the escalator we no long have to huff and puff up several flights of stairs. We can be swiftly transported from point A to point B in what feels like the blink of an eye. For convenience purposes, escalators can be found just about anywhere; hotels, subways, department stores, airports, shopping malls, and stadiums.  Escalators are fairly simple machines. Escalators are essentially long conveyor belts. They’re made up of rotating chains that pull a set of stairs in a constants cycle, a moving staircase. 

While escalators are fairly common forms of transportation, have you ever thought about where they originated? In 1859 Nathan Ames patented the first escalator. He was inspired by the idea of “revolving stairs.” Unfortunately, Ames never turned his concept into an actual working model.  Thirty years later, Leamon Souder patented four different ideas of his own for escalator-like devices. Like Ames, Souder never created any working models of his ideas. 

 It was in 1892 that Jesse W. Reno patented the “endless Conveyor or Elevator.” Reno then produced the first working escalator. He referred to the escalator as an “inclined elevator”. The escalator was later installed along the Old Iron Pier at Coney Island in New York City in 1896. A few years later, George A. Wheeler patented his own ideas for an escalator. Like many before him, Wheeler never built any working models of his concepts. A man named Charles Seeberger purchased Wheeler’s patents. Seeberger combined his ideas with Wheelers which lead to the prototype built by Otis Elevator Company in 1899. Seeberger was also responsible for the name “escalator.” The name is derived from the Latin root words scala, e and tor which translate to “means of traversing from.”