Location-Thirty-six
The bleak years
THE tightening up of the latter half of the 30s had
considerably reduced the overall profitability of
the manufacturing companies. As noted , to
survive they had to diversify. The entry of
America into the war did nothing to ease their
difficulties. As with other countries many
companies closed down never to reopen. Those
that remained were commandeered for war work,
so that for the next three or four years no new
machines were produced .
In the specific case of the Mills ovelty Company
diversification even forced a change of name. To
maintain profitability they had engaged in producing
among other things , soft drink dispensing machines ,
refrigerator compressors , air conditioning equipment ,
ice cream freezers , and motion picture projectors.
Dealers in these lines pressed that the name of the
company be changed , its association with automatic
gambling machines was felt to be detrimental. The
change finally came following the awarding of a
contract for the manufacture of bomb release
mechanisms by the British Govemment who were
initially reluctant to place any such order with a mere
novelty company. On September 1, 1943 the Mills
Novelty Company became the Mills Industries
Incorpora ted.
A subsidiary company was established, the Mills
Bell-O-Matic Corporation, in order to market the
companies post war line of slot machines. It was the
first of the manufacturing companies to launch an
entirely new machine at the end of the war. The first
mode!, the Black Cherry Bell, was in fact advertised in
June 1945, two months before the war ended although
deliveries were not made until October of that year . In
the following year it was joined in production by two
other models , the Golden Falls and the Club Royale,
though the latter was essentially a revamped pre-war
club "Console" mode!. Both the Black Cherry and the
Golden Falls had been designed by Grant Shay the then
advertising manager of Mills Industries , however
neither machine was a radical departure in styling or
design from the late pre-war models .
In February 1947 the Bell-O-Matic Corporation
launched the high top Jew~l Bell as the first of an
entirely new range of machines designed by Everitt
Eckland , who had by this time set up in business as a
freelance designer having left the company during the
war. The high top design was to prove to be one of the
most enduring and widely imitated styles of the
three-reel genre . The Jewel Bell was followed in
January 1949 by the launching of other models in the
new high top range, the Black Beauty Bell, the Blue
Bell, and the Token Bell.
In the same year , in response to the success of the high
• GE
OLDEN
of the SLOT MACHINE
By NICHOLAS COSTA
top range Jennings launched the Sun Chief. It was their
la test mode! in a long line of machines whose origins lay
in the launching of the " One Star" Chief in the summer
of 1935. The long term success of this range was to
make names of "Chief' and "Jennings" synonymous
symbols of mechanical reliability. Of ail the man y Chief
cabinet designs the Sun Chief was the brashest. It was
chrome plated rather than painted , and the by now
traditional bas relief emblem of an Indian chiefs head
was replaced by a gleaming three dimensional bronze
bust of the venerable Indian located directly above the
Jackpot window. The Sun Chief was to have the rare
distinction of starring in a film called "White Line
Fever" in which it featured as the contraband cargo .
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1945 MILLS GOLDEN FALLS
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