Jasey Michelle's 365/366 Photo a Day Blog

As building codes became more common in industrialized countries around the turn of the 20th century, fire safety became an important concern for new construction. Building owners were increasingly required to provide adequate escape routes, and at the time, fire escapes seemed the best option available. The invention of these exterior steel staircases is widely credited to Anna Connelly who first registered a patent for a fire escape in the USA in 1887. Not only could they be included in new construction at a low cost, but they could be very easily added to existing construction. In many urban centers, all new construction above a certain number of stories was required to have external fire escapes throughout much of the 20th century. Today, external fire escapes are rarely part of new construction.