History of O. D. Jennings & Company

Ode D. Jennings was the founder and president of the O. D. Jennings & Company of Chicago, which was once a leading manufacturer of slot machines in the United States and also manufactured other coin-operated machines, including pinball machines.

Ode D. Jennings worked for the Mills Novelty Company. In 1906, Ode Jennings established Industry Novelty Company, Incorporated. Its business was the refurbishment of slot machines manufactured by Mills.

America's entry into World War I on April 6, 1917 did little to diminish the urban and rural love affair with the slot machine, but it did limit its offerings. For almost two years the coin-operated machine manufactures were unable to produce any new machines as the necessary metal and woods were placed on allocation lists as critical materials necessary for the military. But for some, the wartime stoppage of production was a godsend to Ode D. Jennings and his Industry Novelty Company. Jennings had built a business on buying used machines, modifying them as venders, and then reselling them as his own, remarking the critical parts one at a time until he had most of them in his inventory. By the time of America's entry into European war Jennings was producing his own Bell mechanism and was marketing Industry Novelty OPERATORS BELL and side-vender model. While the wartime regulations put many of the smaller slot and vending machine producers out of business, Jennings found himself busier than ever in the maintenance, revamping and repairing end of his business, keeping a substantial portion of the population of existing slot machines in the country operating at a time when new machines were no longer available. The firm, changing its name to O.D. Jennings & Company in 1920, became a major postwar factory in the industry.

At aged 79, Ode Jennings died at home in Schaumburg, Illinois after 47 years at the helm of the company he had founded. He left everything to his wife, Jeannette Isle Jennings; they had no children; on the condition that it was denoted to his church and local hospitals on her death. On March 19, 1954 Jennings & Company was incorporated under the laws of Illinois and it purchased the assets of O. D. Jennings & Company from the estate of Ode Jennings.
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