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in a five-story New York department store in 1874. Wow. Electric elevators came about in the 1880s. This means that Elisha Otis is the inventor of the modern passenger elevator, right? You ask. Until the World's Fair demonstration, Otis hadn't had much less selling elevators, and his initial elevator patent in 1851 was for a freight elevator. This reason some people think of Otis Tufts is the actual inventor of the modern passenger elevator. Three years before Elisha Otis Tufts patented an elevator design that had benches inside and then closed car. The doors had opened and closed automatically. Tufts designed it away with a typical rope and pulley system due to safety concerns. While it was very safe, it was also expensive and slightly impractical, especially for very tall buildings. Otis Tufts's elevators, but his design wasn't widely adopted. Otis Brothers Company, today known as the Otis Elevator Company,