Drop in a coin, press a button, and out pops a snack. Vending machines are so ordinary now that we barely notice them. But the first time Americans saw one, it must have seemed like a little piece of magic. So how did these machines first arrive in the United States?
Here's the answer. The first vending machine in the U.S. was built in 1888 by the Thomas Adams Gum Company, and it sold chewing gum on New York City train platforms. It wasn't a new idea, though. Coin-operated machines had already been popping up in England, and the very first known vending machine goes back nearly 2,000 years.
A Coin-Operated Machine in Ancient Times
The earliest known description of a vending machine comes from Hero of Alexandria, an engineer and mathematician in Roman Egypt in the first century AD. His machine took a coin and dispensed wine or holy water.
It was surprisingly clever. The coin dropped onto a small pan attached to a lever. The weight of the coin tipped the pan, which opened a valve and let liquid flow. When the coin slid off the pan, a counterweight snapped the lever back up and shut the valve.
Centuries later, England had its own versions. Brass coin-operated tobacco boxes were in use in English taverns as early as 1615. In the early 1880s, London got its first modern coin-operated machines, which sold postcards, envelopes, and notepaper at railway stations and post offices.
The Gum Man From New York
The man behind America's first vending machines was Thomas Adams, a New York inventor now considered a founder of the chewing gum industry. His story has a twist. Adams got to know Antonio López de Santa Anna, the former Mexican leader, who chewed a natural gum called chicle.
Adams first tried to turn chicle into a substitute for rubber, hoping to use it for things like tires. That didn't work. So he made chewing gum instead, and it sold. He later created the first flavored gum, a black licorice flavor called Black Jack, and patented the first gum-making machine. His Tutti-Frutti gum was one of the first sold in vending machines.
Games, Prizes, and Restaurants
Once Americans got used to gum machines, inventors started adding fun. In 1897, the Pulver Manufacturing Company added little moving figures that put on a show whenever someone bought gum. These became known as trade stimulators.
Then came whole restaurants built around the idea. On June 12, 1902, Horn & Hardart opened the first American automat in Philadelphia, using vending machines made in Berlin. Customers picked their food from little windows. The automat came to New York City in 1912, and at one point there were forty Horn & Hardart automats in the city. The last one closed in 1991.
A Giant Industry Today
Today, vending is big business. In 2023, the U.S. vending machine industry was estimated to be worth $18.2 billion, with about 3 million machines. Newer models can serve hot pasta, burgers, and fresh food, a far cry from a simple stick of gum.
So the next time you feed a dollar into a machine for a snack, think of those New York commuters in 1888, dropping coins for gum while they waited for the train. And think of Hero of Alexandria, who had the idea first, about eighteen centuries earlier.
