Visit us anytime at https://www.asbestosclaims.law/. History of Asbestos Safes
The first safes in the United States were imported from France during the 1820s.
Safes used to be called “iron chests”, and they were pretty popular with merchants and bankers in the 1800s.
Many of these - like those in banks - were just large iron blocks.
Another popular design safe was an iron and wood safe called a hobnail safe.
Most were essentially thick wooden boxes banded and reinforced together with iron bars and straps fastened to the safe’s wooden walls of the safe with large flat-headed nails, hence the name “hobnail safe.”
Some had sheets of iron lining the inside, but while they prevented people from stealing the contents, they were not fireproof. After all, they were also made of wood.
Now, the wood had been soaked in salt water to make it much more heat-resistant, but the wood could still burn if it came into direct contact with flames.
And later models used coatings of gypsum or plaster of Paris to make them more fire-resistant.
So in the 1830s, a guy named Jesse Delano who was making plaster of Paris iron chests patented a new model that added clay and lime and some other materials that made it even more fireproof.
In 1834, there was a major fire in New York, and while many of the old safes - the iron chests and hobnail safes - utterly failed to protect the contents.
In fact, Scientific American magazine wrote "the fire of 1835 in New York had proved that the old fashioned safe was perfectly worthless."
But this design was in fact significantly improved upon by Charles. J. Gaylor, who added an asbestos lining.
Asbestos Artifacts is a series produced by asbestos attorney Justinian C. Lane and http://www.AsbestosClaims.law. Check out the rest of our YouTube channel and be sure to visit our website for any further asbestos inquiries, including how to qualify for a claim. You can also call us anytime at (833) 4-ASBESTOS (427-2378).
