“I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs."
Mitch Hedberg, comedian
American Jesse W. Reno (1861-1947) came up with the notion of an "inclined elevator" at the age of sixteen and patented the idea in 1891. It was not the first idea of its type because a patent had been granted earlier for a steam-driven design/but this was never built. In 1895 Reno's moving stairway was built as an attraction at New York's Coney Island amusement park.
The term "escalator" was not attached to the invention until 1897, when Charles Seeberger combined sea, a (Latin for "stairs") and elevator, the name of a device invented some years previously. Seeberger redesigned the escalator, and it was built in the Otis factory, New York. This became the first commercial escalator, winning first prize at the Paris Exposition in 1900. The Otis Elevator Company bought the rights to both Reno's and Seeberger's designs and became the world's leading escalator manufacturers.
Reno continued to invent, and after a rejected bid to redesign New York's subway system, he moved to London, and with his new company, began manufacturing a spiral escalator for the London Underground train network. This was less successful and never used by the general public.
