Posts Tagged: "escalator"

On August 9, 1859, the first patent ever issued on a moving stairway, what today we would call an escalator, was granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office to Nathan Ames. Figure 1 (left) shows a perspective view of the double parallel arrangement of stairs, with two flights of stairs side by side. Figure 3 (below) shows a side view of a triangular arrangement where both an ascending and descending flight of stairs are attached to an endless belt.