Alum Charles Hall Invented Waterbed as Part of SF State Project

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER -- The bed once known for its leaky bladders and hippie following got its start in 1968 when Charles Hall, an industrial design student at San Francisco State University, created the first waterbed as part of a school project. Not much of a hippie himself, Hall began handcrafting waterbeds from a studio and delivered them in his station wagon to band members of the Jefferson Airplane and the Smothers Brothers, according to news archives. In 1971 he filed a patent for his waterbed, but knockoffs abounded, and cheaper versions became notorious for leaks.