ter of the company was suspended for failing to file
the required annual report for that year ( or possibly
ever) and the Cook County Superior Court dissolved
the company (as a part of general clean up cam-
paign by the state) on November 26 th , 1926. No
listing for the company can be found in Chicago city
directories for the period it was supposedly in busi-
ness. (The Chicago City Directory for 1 91 7 lists a
Merchant's Cooperative Gum Company, located at
706, 111 W. Washington Street, but there is no
evidence that this company was in any way related.)
Why the only other vending patent by Woodward
was assigned to this apparently troubled company
may never be known. The patent was flied in June
of 1 906, so the troubles of the company must have
been known at that point. A review of the incorpo-
ration documents do not reveal any obvious connec-
tions between Woodward and the officers or share-
holders of the fledgling company. The most likely
explanation is that it was a marriage of convenience
- a freelance inventor and a company in need of
products.
We know that Irving Woodward did most of his in-
venting as a freelance enterprise because of his 30
patents, 21 were in his own name, 6 were assigned
to corporations and 3 were assigned to other indi-
viduals (including one Eugene A. Woodward who was
likely a relative). Of the patents assigned to corpo-
rations, there were five different companies through
the years ( 1 91 6-1 9 21 ) including the Woodward Dif-
ferential Gear Company of Chicago. This last patent
was issued only a year before Woodward moved to
Syracuse, New York. Chicago directories for 1903
list Irving Woodward as "mngr 1 200, 279 Dearborn"
and in 1904 as "bds 4065 Ellis av." By 1910, Chi-
cago directories listed Woodward under "novelties"
located at 324 Dearborn, implying multiple moves
and changing jobs. All of this would suggest that
Woodward had few if any ties to any company and
those that he did have may not have been either
robust or successful. This may help to explain the
use of an Ohio company to act as "sole agents" in
the marketing and use of the Gravity Vendor. Not
exactly a recipe for commercial success.
and weight of the product being vended, the lowest
item can be held too tightly against the bumper
(number 16 in the patent drawing), so that it is not
dislodged by the coin. The opposite can also occur.
When the first item in the column is dislodged, the
next few can tumble out before one of them firmly
occupies the correct location to hold in check the
parade of goods held in the glass tubes. If the ma-
chine was not level, or it was shaken, one or more
mints or gumballs could be
obtained without the use of a
coin. Indeed, it is the last
tendency that makes filling
these machines difficult (if
you can even find the corrects size goods today).
The Mysterious Companies
Another possible explanation for the rarity of these
machines many be even simpler: The lack of ties by
Woodward to a manufacturing and distribution sys-
tem. While one version of the gravity machine (the
1 904 version) carries a casting proclaiming "Gravity
Vending Machine Co," there are no records of such a
company being incorporated in the state of Illinois.
A search of the Chicago City Directories for 1903,
1 904 and 1905 similarly comes up with no listing.
The machines that exist today all carry an added
metal plate with the printed notice "Wagner & Miller,
Sandusky, Ohio, Sole agents for North-Eastern
Ohio." Sandusky, Ohio is not exactly where one
might expect to find a connection to a Chicago in-
vention or manufactur-
-
WAGNER&. MILLER, ing company. It is also
somewhat mysterious
SANDUSKY, OHIO,
soLE AGENTs FOR NORTl1•EASTER,' 0H10. because Ohio State re-
cords do not show any
record of such a company being incorporated during
the period 1 900-1 2, and city directories for the
same period have no record of them either.
The Merchant's Vending Machine Company, to
whom Woodward assigned his 1 907 vending ma-
chine patent, was incorporated in Illinois in 1 902,
but must also have been a shaky enterprise. Incor-
porated February 1 5 th , 1 902 by Fred W. Bentley,
Georges J. Kappes and Orpheus A. Harding with a
stated capital stock of $100,000 (the equivalent of
$2,456,634 in 2008 dollars), the company quickly
ran afoul of the state of Illinois. By 1 906, the char-
There you have it, the history of the simplest ven-
dor invented by an enigmatic inventor with a fasci-
nation for nuts and bolts.
7