Beautifully engraved certificate from the Otis Elevator Company issued no later than 1972. This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of two allegorical men sitting beside an allegorical woman with her arms spread. This item has the printed signatures of the Company's Treasurer and Secretary and is over 38 years old.
Certificate Vignette Otis Elevator Co., a wholly-owned subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation, is the world's largest manufacturer installer, and servicer of elevators, escalators, moving walkways and other horizontal transportation systems. Company Milestones 1853 Elisha Graves Otis founds the company in Yonkers, New York, after he invents a safety mechanism for a lifting platform 1884 Establish sales offices in London and Paris 1888 Win contract to install elevators in Eiffel Tower 1893 Install elevators in Russia 1896 Install elevators in Japan 1900 Introduce escalator at the World's Fair in Paris 1902 Equip the 20-story Flatiron Building, an early skyscraper in New York City, with elevators 1907 Install elevators in China 1910 Establish first European manufacturing plant in France 1912 Install elevators in 60-story Woolworth Building in New York City 1925 Install first control system with a "memory" at St. Luke's Hospital, in Chicago, permitting automatic operation without an operator 1931 Install elevators in the Empire State Building in New York City 1948 Introduce automatic electronic elevator system 1960 Install high-rise observation elevator at Fairmont Tower Hotel, San Francisco 1967 Install 255 elevators and 71 escalators in the World Trade Center in New York City 1968 Install a double-deck elevator system at the Time-Life Building in Chicago 1976 Become a wholly owned subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation