Jesse W. Reno

American engineer

• Born: August 4, 1861
• Birthplace: Fort Leavenworth, Texas
• Died: June 2, 1947
• Place of death: Pelham Manor, New York

Reno invented moving stairs, the inclined elevator, better known as the escalator. Some escalators he designed were in use through the 1990’s, more than fifty years after his death.

Primary field: Mechanical engineering

Primary invention: Escalator

Early Life

Mary Bradley Beanes Cross and Jesse Lee Reno wed on November 1, 1853, in Washington D.C. Mary was a well-educated socialite from a prominent D.C. military family. By the time of their wedding, Jesse already had a successful military career, after graduating from the United States Military Academy in 1846. The family was living in Kansas, where Reno was in charge of the Fort Leavenworth arsenal, when their youngest son, Jesse Wilford Reno, was born on August 4, 1861. Jesse Lee was promoted to major general in 1862. He commanded the Ninth Corps during the Second Battle of Bull Run in Virginia on August 28-30, 1862. General Reno was killed in an attack on the evening of September 14 later that year during the Battle of South Mountain in Maryland.

Mary Reno and her children lived in several midwestern and Southern states in the years after the Civil War. During this time, she bought a family burial plot in a Washington, D.C., cemetery, and moved the bodies of her husband and three children who had died there. She was buried with them when she died a few years later.

Jesse W. Reno attended Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, where he majored in engineering. Reno was involved in several activities and organizations there, participating in choir, Chi Phi (Psi chapter), and the fraternity’s lawn tennis club, serving as class historian, and playing on the university’s baseball team. He graduated in 1883. Reno worked as an engineer for a mining company in Colorado before moving to Georgia. While working for the Thomson-Houston Electric Company in Americus, Reno built the first electric railway in the southern United States.

Life’s Work

In 1891, after moving to were chosen, Reno applied for his first patent. The invention was an idea he had been considering since the age of sixteen: the “new and useful endless conveyor or elevator.” The patent went into effect in 1892. Reno built one of the devices and installed it as a ride at Coney Island, New York, in 1896. This early model was more of an inclined bicycle. The ride was inclined 25 , reached a height of seven feet, and moved at a speed of seventy-five feet per minute. Passengers had to be careful when getting on and off the ride to avoid being kicked by fellow riders. Reno’s inclined elevator was at Coney Island for two weeks, during which time seventy-five thousand people took rides.

In 1896, Reno submitted a design for a double-decker New York City subway system. Inclined elevators would move passengers from street level to the different underground train platforms. Reno estimated that it would take the city three years to build the system. New York City officials rejected Reno’s plan. On January 15, 1901, Reno married the widowed baroness Marie G. Snowman in Kansas. The couple moved to London shortly after the wedding. Reno started the Reno Electric Stairways and Conveyors Company in 1902.

By this time, Reno escalators were being installed in stores throughout the United States and Europe. His early design had been modified into more of an inclined moving walkway. Rails guided a series of wooden pallets on a moving conveyor. Rubber cleats were installed on the wooden stairs to help passengers keep their footing. Early versions of comb plates were located at both ends of the escalator to clean the wooden treads. The machine had two handrails—one stationary, the other cloth-covered rubber that moved at the same speed as the escalator. One drawback of the moving handrail was that the lubrication oil often stained riders’ clothing. Reno altered the design so that the inclined elevator was more steplike. The Manhattan Elevated Railroad Company purchased one hundred Reno escalators in 1900. Some of them remained in operation until 1955.

Reno then turned his attention to building a spiral escalator. In 1906, he was hired by the London Underground to install one in the Holloway Road train station. He partnered with William Henry Aston, who had developed a flexible pallet and chain system. They built a working model at their own expense for a London subway station. However, passengers never used the spiral walkway because it never passed safety inspections. Ninety years later, it was found in an abandoned tunnel of the station. Reno’s spiral escalator is now on display in London’s Transport Museum.

In 1903, Reno sold one-third of his business to the Otis Elevator Company. Otis had already begun producing its own version of the inclined elevator based on the patents of Charles Seeberger, who coined the term “escalator” by combining the Latin word scala (steps) and “elevator.” Seeberger sold his patent rights to the Otis company in 1910, and Reno sold his company to Otis in 1911. Reno’s design was sold as the “cleat-type escalator” until 1921, when Otis combined it with Seeberger’s model to form the modern escalator.

In 1921, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers created a voluntary code committee as part of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Until then, safety and design issues were the responsibility of the manufacturers. Three changes were made at the suggestion of the committee that drastically improved passenger safety. Brakes and safety switches were created so the escalator could be stopped during power outages, mechanical failures, or when passenger’s clothing became stuck in the machine. Handrails and balustrades (side panels) were extended past the comb plates; this modification allowed passengers to grasp the handrail before they stepped onto the escalator, giving them time to adjust to the speed and making it easier to get on and off. Also, this extension moved the point where the handrail entered the balustrade at the floor farther from the riders. Many injuries had occurred when hands, feet, or clothing became caught at the joint. The third change came in the 1930’s, when metal treads replaced the original wooden ones. The metal steps hold up better over time and break less often than wood. Wooden treads also had wider-spaced grooves that objects such as high heels often got stuck in.

Reno died on June 2, 1947, in Pelham Manor, New York. He was buried alongside his parents and siblings in the family plot in Washington, D.C. Reno and his wife had no children.

Impact

Reno began developing the idea of a moving staircase, or inclined elevator, at the age of sixteen. Some Reno escalators remained in operation in the Boston subway system and Philadelphia department stores through the 1990’s. Many of Reno’s ideas are still part of the modern-day escalator. He invented the early comb plate to clean the stairs, and the moving covered rubber handrail. In the 1950’s, the U.S. Patent Office decided that “escalator” had become part of the vernacular to mean any moving staircase, and the word was lowercased. Macy’s downtown New York City store still has wooden escalators in use. Hong Kong, on the other hand, has the largest modern escalator system in the world, with over half a mile of tracks.

Bibliography

Bangash, M. Y. H. Handbook of Staircases, Escalators, and Moving Walkways. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, 2008. A detailed book dealing with the technical side of escalators and staircases. Includes historical and experimental models and several diagrams. For engineers, contractors, and anyone interested in the mechanics of escalators.

Goetz, Alisa. Up, Down, Across: Elevators, Escalators, and Moving Sidewalks. New York: Merrell, 2003. A work focusing on the history of elevators, escalators, and moving sidewalks, conveniences that are often taken for granted. However, some designers are shifting away from camouflaging them, making them part of the building’s architecture. Includes historical and modern photographs. Based on the National Building Museum’s exhibit of the same name.

McConnell, William. Remembering Reno: A Biography of Major General Jesse Lee Reno. Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane, 1996. A biography of Reno’s father, a celebrated general during the American Civil War. Touches on the family’s early life, children, and war experiences. Includes photographs, index, and bibliography.

Orton, Ray. Moving People from Street to Platform: One Hundred Years of Underground. Mobile, Ala.: Elevator World, 2000. A coffee-table book covering the history of London’s underground train system from 1863 to 1999. Discusses the evolution and role of escalators in the London underground. Includes more than seventy historical photographs from the London Transport Museum.