The origins of the business lie with Mortimer Birdsul Mills, who founded the company in the 1880’s and went on to produce coin operated machines. By the late 1930s, vending machines were being installed by Mills Automatic Merchandising Corporation of New York. The slot machine division was then owned by Bell-O-Matic Corporation.
By 1944 the name of the company had changed to Mills Industries, Incorporated. Between about 19, the company's products included the Mills Violano Virtuoso and its predecessors, celebrated machines that automatically played a violin and, after about 1909, a piano. The Mills Novelty Company, Incorporated of Chicago, was once the world’s leading manufacturer of coin operated machines, including slot machines, vending machines, and jukeboxes, in the United States.
