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Alexander miles was born on January 1837 in Ohio, Was once a barber in Waukesha, Minnesota in 1870 where he met wife Candace J. Dunlap a white woman from N.Y. In 1873 they had a daughter named Grace then moved to Duluth, Minnesota. Because of his young daughter Grace he decided to draft a design that automatically opened and closed elevator shafts doors. Miles design was 13 years after the initial 1873 invention deep of modern automotive elevator doors. Though he didn’t invent the first elevators however his design was very important he created an automatic mechanism that closed access to elevator was not on the floor. At that time elevator patrons or operators were often required to manually shut a door to cut off access to the elevators. People often forgot to close the doors and as a result accidents would happen with people falling down the elevator shafts. In 1884 he built a 3 story brown stone building the address was 19 Superior St. in Duluth. The area became known as the Miles block. Duluth started building tall buildings including the 6 story Duluth National Bank and still use his elevator designs. He was credited improving the electric elevator paton # 371,207 patoned October 11, 1887 He died sometime in 1905 but was able to transcend racial barriers in the United States. Miles was inducted into the Inventers Hall Of fame in 2007.



References inventors.about.com/od/photogalley/ig/African-Americans--M/Alexander-Miles---Improved-Ele.htm en.wik.pedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Miles#Biography www.google.com/imgres?om gurl=http://african-americaninventors.org/ imagesidb_images/miles.pri& imgrefurl=http://african-american http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/354.html http://site.newsherald.com/bhm/chapter5.pdf