Linus Yale, Jr.

Linus Yale, Jr. ( born April 14, 1821 in Salisbury, New York, † December 25, 1868 ) was an American inventor and is best known for the invention of the cylinder lock.

Yale opened in the early 1840s a lock shop in Shelburne Falls, Franklin County ( Massachusetts). In 1861 he had patented a cylinder lock for doors and 1865 an improved version. This was one of the most secure door locks, the base of which is still used today. These locks were constructed back then as the first mass-produced. In 1868 he founded with Henry Robinson Towne in Stamford (Connecticut), the Yale Lock Manufacturing Co. Stamford is therefore also known as " Lock City".