History

The first use of ropes to transport people was in China in the 16th century. In those days they had to use rope until steel cable was invented in 1834. People used these ropes to cross bodies of water, initially transferring themselves, hand over hand, with the body suspended by a crude harness. The next application was to pull oneself in a basket.

Although Fausto Veranzio of Venice designed a passenger ropeway in 1616, the ropeway industry generally credits Adam Wiebe, a Dutchman, with erecting the first successful operational cable car system in 1644. Cable cars didn’t come to America until 1868. The first urban mass transport application of aerial ropeways in the United States was in 1976 with the Roosevelt Island cable car system built in New York City. (It still operates to this day).

The first tramway in the United States was completed in 1984 when the city of New Orleans built an Aerial Tram over the Mississippi River for the Louisiana World Exposition.