Garage doors have evolved with garages, and garages have evolved with the automobile. Prior to Henry Ford’s invention in the early 20th century, a “garage” was more likely to be a stable house, where horses and carriages were kept. Insofar as both were a separate structure to house transportation, then these stables were like garages, and of course possessed doors. These doors were wooden and opened from the center out in two parts, by hand, to allow for equine passage.
But when carriages were replaced with cars, so too were the smelly, wooden structures of stables replaced with more solidly built garages. Garages grew closer to homes, often becoming a part of them, designed in the same style and built with the same sturdiness. They soon began to open upwards and outwards, held on pulleys for quick easy manual opening and closing. These garage doors were not motor-run, but were based on mechanisms.
It took quite a few years between the invention of the motor until engineers thought to use it to power the opening of a garage door, but once it happened it became ubiquitous almost overnight. And very quickly engineers realized that opening a door with a motor was easier if the entire doors didn’t’ have to balance on a fulcrum, and thus the sectional garage door was created.
Around the same time, the simplicity (and often, inefficiency) of plain wood was replaced with synthetic materials and wood hybrids for better durability and more polished look.
Much in the way that animals gain and lose traits to optimally survive, garage doors, over the years, have gained and lost characteristics to continue being optimally useful and survive through the years. A new garage door installation is the legacy of decades of changes through time.