Recently our team was contacted to inspect a 19th century building where the new owner had found a hand-powered (pull-rope) elevator. Completely in tact and fully preserved complete with original rope and pulley, platform and counterweight system along with painted on data tags, it was immediately identified as an Otis-Fensom Elevator from the 1890’s.

By the end of the 19th century, Toronto had grown rapidly into an industrial and urbanized hub alongside its neighbours Hamilton and Montreal. Marked by the Toronto Industrial Exhibition in 1879, the region had fully entered its industrial era with factories and buildings increasingly getting larger and taller. During this period soft industry like garment production and textile manufacturing began adopting advanced equipment and new technologies such as lifts to move freight throughout the manufacturing floors to aid with the rapidly growing market.

Workers and machines were brought together in a single factory building specially designed to handle the flow of materials. Multi-story buildings were common because they facilitated transmission of power and goods through line shafts with different operations being done on different floors.