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The origins of the garage door and its innovations

From the swinging wood doors of the 1920s to today's insulated steel and smart openers. The history of the garage door and how it shaped Las Vegas homes.

Nationwide Garage Door Products · February 2025

The garage door was invented in the United States in the 1920s. The electric opener followed in the 1930s, sectional doors came after the war, and remote openers arrived in the 1960s.

Key takeaways

1920s. First manual wood and metal doors that swung open
1930s. C.G. Johnson introduces the electric opener
1940s and 1950s. Sectional doors on hinged panels
1960s on. Remotes, sensors, insulation and custom designs

The garage door is a staple of the modern home, and it has a history that spans more than a century. It is hard to picture how far it has come when you look at the doors on Las Vegas homes today. Here is how it started, who moved it forward, and how it got so elegant.

The 1920s in America

The first garage doors appeared in the United States in the 1920s. Cars were becoming common and owners needed a safe, easy place to keep them. Those early doors were simple manual doors of wood or metal on hinges that swung open and shut. In Las Vegas the garage door caught on around the 1950s, when the city was on its way up.

The electric opener

In the 1930s the electric opener changed how people used their garages. C.G. Johnson, an American engineer who founded a garage door company in 1921, designed an electric motor that lifted the door. It made the garage easier to use and gave more clearance for larger objects, including the cars of the day.

After the war

Suburbs spread after World War II and demand for garage doors grew with them. Makers developed the sectional door, a two part system of panels joined by hinges. The door could bend and travel more smoothly. In places like Las Vegas the sectional door worked even better than the old swing door.

Modern doors

In the 1960s automatic openers arrived. They used remote controls, safety features and sensors to run the door. Today garage doors come in every style and material, including insulated doors, steel doors and custom wood doors. The last ten years brought the biggest changes yet, for the doors and for the companies that repair them.

Safety and technology

Swift Garage Door Repair of Las Vegas tells us that features that are now standard, such as photo eye sensors, save hundreds of people from serious injury. In hot places like Las Vegas the outdoor keypad is a favorite upgrade. Doors here are more likely to have one than doors in most cities.

What comes next

The garage door has come a long way from its practical beginnings. It went from a manual swing door to a sophisticated machine. It is fair to expect the door, and the repair trade around it, to change beyond belief in the next 20 years.