This article is part of RPN’s Pallet History series.
How early material handling challenges quietly shaped the modern pallet
Legacy reprint: History of the Fork Truck
Long before pallets became standardized platforms, manufacturers and warehouses experimented with simple wooden and combination wood and iron platforms that allowed goods to be lifted clear of the floor and repositioned horizontally within plants, typically using platform or low-lift trucks. These early solutions were crude, inconsistent, and rarely documented, but they formed the foundation for what would later become palletized handling. Such platforms at first were the exception rather than the rule, however. Early load platforms typically featured 2-inch thick top deckboards supported by cast iron legs, as described in warehousing trade publications of the day (see depiction below; Pallets: A North American Perspective).
According to Matthew W. Potts, a leading material handling consultant writing in the 1920s, the most prominent and universal means of moving materials was the “stevedore truck,” which he described as being “known by all.” These hand-operated warehouse trucks dominated material movement in plants and warehouses and help explain why early palletized systems developed slowly: mechanization had not yet displaced manual transport.
Legacy article: What Came First, the Pallet or the Forklift?
Early Lift Trucks: The Introduction of Pallet Stacking
As innovation allowed lift trucks to lift higher, it created the opportunity to stack loads and free up valuable warehouse space. Even prior to the use of skids, tiering truck operators attempted to stack stiffer loads such as lumber, requiring them to step out of their machines to place dunnage blocks so that the lift truck load platform could be extracted after placement. This was a time-consuming and dangerous process. The introduction of forks allowed the usage of wood stringers and the placement of a center stringer, the latter acting to reduce span.
Even with the introduction of stringers, stacking remained problematic. Without a bottom deck, some loads were vulnerable to crush damage due to concentrated forces over the stringers, while others were susceptible to lateral stringer collapse. Both of these issues were addressed by the addition of a bottom pallet deck, which improved weight distribution to reduce crush damage, while the improved design helped reduce lateral stringer collapse.
Legacy Reprint: Why Use Two If One Will Do
In Plant Usage
One of the defining characteristics of pre-war pallet use was that load platforms and skids were used predominantly within plants. While there are records of unitizeNotable developments included H.T. Hallowell’s lift truck platform patent (1924) and George Raymond’s patent for a double-faced pallet (1937).d shipment between plants and customers as early as the 1920s, such cases were exceptional. Even into the late 1930s, palletized shipment remained noteworthy and experimental rather than routine. Notable developments included H.T. Hallowell’s lift truck platform (1924) and George Raymond’s patent for a double-faced pallet (1937).
Legacy Article: A History of Pallets During World War 2: A Call to Action
Incremental Progress, Not a Breakthrough
In the 1920s and 1930s, mechanized material handling still featured a great variety of solutions such as conveyors, hoists and elevators, often tailored to address the needs of particular types of materials and industries. At that time, it was far from clear that platforms and later, pallets, would come to dominate the material handling landscape.
However, by the late 1930s, tests involving pallets were proving to be promising for some goods, particularly heavier or more compact products. The conditions that would turn pallets from local solutions into essential logistics tools were still ahead. They would not be driven by commercial optimization, but by the extraordinary demands of the Second World War.
Next in this series:
Pallets and Military Logistics During World War II
References
Pallets: A North American Perspective (2023)
Pallets and Progress: A Collected History of Pallets and Palletized Handling 1922 – 1945 (2025)
