verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . june 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message the topic of this article may not meet wikipedia s general notability guideline . please help to establish notability by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond its mere trivial mention . if notability can not be established the article is likely to be merged redirected or deleted . find sources von duprin news newspapers books scholar jstor free images june 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message von duprin inc. type private industry security hardware manufacturing founded 1908 headquarters carmel indiana products door exit hardware and programmable access control products and systems . website www.vonduprin.com von duprin is a brand of security products . it was the producer of the first panic bar style door mechanism that allows a door to a public building to be locked from the outside but still easy to exit from the inside . 1 background edit in 1903 the iroquois theatre fire in chicago claimed the lives of almost 600 people . carl prinzler was supposed to attend a show at the theatre that fateful night however other business dealings called him elsewhere . in this era it was common for theatres and the like to lock interior and exterior doors to prevent non paying persons from entering . this also inhibited persons on the inside from exiting . as was the case during the iroquois theatre fire all doors were locked and or bolted which prevented patrons from exiting causing most to be burned alive or succumbing to smoke inhalation . prinzler was astounded at the enormous and senseless loss of life that night . he sought a way for doors into public facilities to be locked from the outside but to allow egress from the inside with minimal effort during an emergency . prinzler tapped into the architectural engineering abilities of henry h. dupont to develop a product . in 1908 the first model of a panic bar style egress device was released and vonnegut hardware company was utilized to market it . owing to the joint effort to develop and sell the product it was sold under the name von duprin a combination of the names vonnegut dupont and prinzler . the popular 88 series crossbar exit devices still manufactured by von duprin have appear similar to the original design although significant engineering changes have been made . 1 von duprin continues to manufacture security related products and is a brand of allegion plc. references edit a b about us von duprin website external links edit von duprin website allegion website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title von duprin & oldid 725105005 categories security companies of the united statesaccess controldoor furniturehidden categories articles needing additional references from june 2016all articles needing additional referencesarticles with topics of unclear notability from june 2016all articles with topics of unclear notability navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 13 june 2016 at 16 12 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view