A short history about elevators

Since man started to live in tall buildings, he dealt with the problem of vertical moving of people and loads.

Archaeological excavations have shown that since the era of Ancient Rome, people were lifted on platforms, tied with ropes that the Roman captive slaves pulled.

At Tibet and ours Meteora, people or merchandise were lifted in baskets, at great heights. These primitive means of vertical moving had the significant drawback, that if the rope broke, the transported would fell without a salvation possibility.

It is said that a visitor of Meteora asked a monk:

-“How often do you change the lifting rope of the basket?”

-“Every time it breaks of course.”

The history of modern elevator starts with the enforcement of the insurance grip provision, which excludes the case of free fall of the cabin.

In 1852, in America, before the frightened eyes of the observers Ε.G.OTIS, cut the ropes of the platform on which he was standing. The platform began to fall and suddenly it instantaneously stopped. The grip device had worked.

Since then, technology at the sector of elevators made huge leaps.

In 1857 the first elevator is installed for public use. It moved with a steam engine, which burnt charcoal.

In 1870 the first hydraulic lifts started to work in New York.