The History of the Garage Door (Part One)

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The automobile exploded into American society around the turn of the 20th century, bringing with it many practical problems that had to be solved. For example, the creation of, what one 1912 architect dubbed, a 'new kind of out-building'. Outbuildings were generally thought of as either barns in rural areas, or 'carriage houses' in urban areas. The carriage house was a place to keep the horse and buggy, the preferred method of quick transportation before the car became truly popular. It made sense to the early automobile owners to store their car next to the horse and buggy.

But one problem. Owners of cars back in the early 20th century were only those who could afford one- wealthy and influential families, for the most part. These high-class owners didn't want their brand new cars to reek of manure. They needed a less smelly alternative. At the outset, garages were more like one-leveled parking structures. You store more than one horse in a barn, typically. Why not do the same with cars? Garages were built large, some private and some public, and proprieters charged monthly fees for spaces. It was quite the lucrative business. But by 1910, there were too many cars for these garages to contain, and overcrowding led to skyrocketing prices and general dissastisfaction. So they brought it back to the 'carriage house' idea, building small horseless structures close to home. Garage is from the French word garer, (in Spanish, guarder), meaning, to guard, shelter, or protect. No one is quite sure how the garage finally received its name, but it became near-ubiquitous within a decade.

Early garage doors were just like barn doors, with side-hinged, large double doors and latches. Early garages also were more like what today we would call a shed- rough wood, nails falling out, creaky hinges, wide slats. Improvements were deemed necessary. Doors gained sliding tracks, and the garage became more versatile.

The invention of the modern folding garage door was necessitated by the fact that a standard-hinged door would require a much wider space in which to open- leading to absurdly large garages. When inventors finally figured out that a door could be made of several panels made to bend around corners and tuck into adjacent walls or ceilings, the modern garage door was born.

It would be many years, however, before electric and motor garage door openers would relieve families of the need to open the garage by hand.