Inventor. He was a master mechanic who didn't invent the elevator, but something perhaps more important, the elevator brake that made skyscrapers a practical reality. In 1845, while working at the factory of O. Tingley & Company, New York, he invented 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. He went to Yonkers, New York, to organize and install machinery for the bedstead firm of Maize & Burns in 1852, which needed a hoist to lift heavy equipment to the upper floor. While there, he devised a device known as the Otis Safety Elevator Brake. In 1854, he dramatized his safety device on the top floor of the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York. The safety brake kept the carload from falling in the event the cables broke, the platform held fast and the elevator industry was on its way. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1988.
Inventor. He was a master mechanic who didn't invent the elevator, but something perhaps more important, the elevator brake that made skyscrapers a practical reality. In 1845, while working at the factory of O. Tingley & Company, New York, he invented 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. He went to Yonkers, New York, to organize and install machinery for the bedstead firm of Maize & Burns in 1852, which needed a hoist to lift heavy equipment to the upper floor. While there, he devised a device known as the Otis Safety Elevator Brake. In 1854, he dramatized his safety device on the top floor of the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York. The safety brake kept the carload from falling in the event the cables broke, the platform held fast and the elevator industry was on its way. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1988.
Bio by: John "J-Cat" Griffith
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"Inventor Originator of the Otis Safety Elevator"
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