turnstiles

History

Turnstiles were originally used, like other forms of stile, to allow human beings to pass while excluding livestock, grave yards being one application. They may have been used from the early modern period to control access to toll roads, and retail streets, the Holborn Great Turnstile appearing in 16th-century literature Turnstiles were adopted as a means to control access to building and amusements during the 19th century, with many sports stadiums and swimming pools installing them, patents for improvements to the concept being granted to manufacturers. Coin and later ticket operated turnstiles appeared on mass transit systems during the 20th century, magnetic strip encoded tickets and passes replacing earlier perforated tickets, during the late 1960s, in Tokyo. The use of turnstiles, in 20th-century United States, has been credited to Clarence Saunders, who used them in his first Piggly Wiggly store.