Who invented the automatic door?
So today I was thinking about something we utilize almost every day.... or at least every time we enter a Wal-Mart or grocery store or one of many other shopping locations. (Though strangely enough now that I think of it, very few restaurants use this invention.) This invention is the automatic door....
The door is the what, so I just need to answer those major questions of whom, when, where and why.
As per my research the Automatic door was invented in 1954 in the town of Corpus Christi, Texas by Dee Horton and Lew Hewitt. They invented the doors after noticing many of the existing swinging doors were difficult to open in the heavy winds that are prevalent in the coastal town of Corpus Christi. The answer to this problem in their minds was to invent a door that would slide open automatically. There first auto-matic doors used mat sensor that you stepped on to sense when to open for customers/guest instead of the more high tech optical sensors we usually see today.
In 1960 Horton and Hewitt formed a company called Horton Automatics Incorporated to begin selling there new product and sold their first one to Driscoll Hotel for its restaurant. However the first one installed was a door donated by the company to the Corpus Christi Shoreline Drive utilities department.
Bonus Fact:
Horton Automatics is a division of the Overhead Door Corporation, who are also pioneers in the door opening field... creating the first upward acting door in 1921 as well as the first electric door opener in 1926.
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