The idea came to Lew Hewitt and Dee Horton to build an automatic sliding door back in the mid-1950's, when they realized that swing doors had difficulty operating in windy Corpus Christi. So Lew and Dee set out to invent the automatic sliding door to circumvent the windy conditions.
Horton Automatics Inc. was formed in 1960, placing the first commercial automatic sliding door on the market and literally establishing a brand-new industry.