Elevator Operator

Betsy Fanning worked as a janitor at Robert and Company for several years (at its old office on Poplar Street) before eventually running the elevator there for nearly 20 years. The first reference to an elevator is in the works of the Roman architect Vitruvius, who reported that Archimedes built his first elevator over 200 year B.C. Elisha Otis’s elevator was the first with a safety catch in case an elevator cable broke.