On this day, October 11, in 1887, Alexander Miles patented the electric elevator. Before automatic doors, an elevator’s doors had to be pulled closed by the elevator conductor. If the conductor ...

Alexander Miles is well known as the inventor who ... Miles began to develop a new concept to improve the general function of the elevator door. Both the doors and the shaft had to be manually ...

5. Alexander Miles – Elevator door design improvements In 1887, Alexander Miles improved the method of opening and closing the elevator doors which allowed them to open and close ...

Two newspaper interviews, published 20 years apart, bookend the rise and fall of Alexander ... Superior St. Miles applied for an elevator patent in 1887 aimed at making doors safer.