Charles Hall Invented the Water Bed in SF State Design Class in 1968

ST. GEORGE NEWS (UTAH) -- During the 19th century, physicians marketed the bed as having health benefits, and it finally hit the U.S. 150 years later when San Francisco State University student Charles Hall presented the water bed in his final thesis for a design class in 1968. Hall refined its construction by using better materials and modernized production methods. The bed was the byproduct of an earlier invention in his apartment, which he called “The Incredible Creeping Chair.” “I built a chair that was 300 pounds of liquid starch encased in a vinyl skin. You would sit in this thing and it would creep up around you,” Hall said in a Time magazine article in 1970. The water bed fared much better, and in 1971, Hall obtained a patent and later became a wealthy man.