The History of the
Paul E. Berger
Manufacturing Company
by ROGER P. SMITH
You might get a very different answer to the ques-
tion "Who wants a Berger?" if you ask a slot machine
collector or a vending enthusiast. Advanced slot collec-
tors may know the Paul E. Berger Manufacturing Com-
pany of Chicago Ridge as one of the most successful,
but short lived of the early makers of upright electric
slot machines. Vending enthusiasts may know little or
nothing about this company except for a single vendor
in Ken Rubin's book or Bill Enes' books. The real story
of Paul E. Berger and his company is more complex
and is one of wild success and catastrophic failure, all
in a very short period of time.
In one of his books, the late Richard Bueschel attri-
butes the first Berger slot machines to 1896, but corpo-
rate records show that the Paul E. Berger Manufactur-
ing Company of Chicago received its corporate charter
March 28, 1898. The charter lists the company as a
manufacturer of 'novelties' but its main products in the
early years were upright (floor) electric slot machines
and cash registers. The small city of Chicago Ridge
was chosen as the location for the company's manu-
facturing plant. Located 15 miles southwest of the
Chicago Loop, Chicago Ridge and its neighbor, Worth,
both grew up along a feeder canal for the Illinois &
Michigan Canal that reached from the Little Calumet
River westward through the Saganash-kee Slough. The
area was first settled in the 1840s and 50s by German
and Dutch farmers, but the area languished economi-
cally until the coming of the Wabash, St. Louis & Pa-
cific Railroad in 1882. Later, the Wabash would be
crossed in the middle of Chicago Ridge by the Chicago
& Calumet Terminal Railway, which also established
rail yards in the village. In I 898, the Berger Company
located its plant on 5 acres at Birmingham & Oxford,
adjacent to the railroad intersection using some of the
existing buildings of the Navy Cash Register Company.
The Navy Cash Register Company was also known as
the Chicago Cash Register Company and was eventu-
ally acquired by National Cash Register Company in
1905. The Berger Company built housing for its em-
ployees, and a settlement with a tavern, rooming house,
and grocery store emerged around the factory. The first
post office for Chicago Ridge opened in 1900 in the
Berger factory (James H. Robison was named the first
Postmaster, April 2, 1900) and, in 1902, the Wabash
Railroad established a train station. Some longtime
residents of Chicago Ridge even credit Paul Berger as
"the man that built the town."
James Jacob Ritty of Dayton, Ohio, is credited with
inventing the cash register ("Ritty's Incorruptible Ca-
shier") in 1879. While the field of cash registers contin-
ued to be one of innovation and change for many years,
Paul Berger concentrated on other areas. It appears that
Berger had his fingers in many pies, but most of his
inventing and manufacturing efforts were spent on slot
machines. The first payout slot machines appeared in
1892, making slot machines the hot item of the day with
a number of manufacturers bringing out new models as
fast as an eager market demanded. Times were good;
the stock market crash of a few years prior (1893) had
passed, the Alaska Gold Rush of 1898 was prompting
over 50,000 men to brave the element for a chance to
get rich quick and discretionary money that could be
risked on a game of chance was available. These new
gambling devices offered novelty and a chance to win
a tidy sum. Berger joined several other manufacturers
(Mills, Caille, Paupa and Hochriem, Daniel H. Schaal,
Watling, White and the Automatic Machine Company)
and brought out dry-cell operated electrical slot ma-
chines, rising to be the primary producer of this type
of machine.
The Paul E. Berger Manufacturing Company brought
out upright (floor) model slot machines called the Chi-
cago Ridge ( 1898-1905), the Magic Fortune Teller
(1899), and what was probably their most popular ma-
chine, the Uno (1900-1902). They also made machines
that were named for other cities and states; The Mis-
souri, the Oshkosh, The Kalamazoo, and The Monadu-
ock, of which only a total of about 30 are known to
have survived. The period was one of rampant corpo-
rate copying of any successful idea, name, or product.
Like other manufacturers, Berger brought out his own
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