- Charles Fey
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Charles Fey (born August Fey in Vöhringen, Bavaria) (February 2, 1862 or February 2, 1861[1]–November 10, 1944) was a San Francisco mechanic who is best-known for inventing the slot machine.
Contents
Family
Charles’s family was very large: he was the youngest of 16 children. As the family was very poor, he started working when he was 14 by helping his brother Edmund but he had to leave Germany when he was 15 because of his strict father and went to France where he worked as an instrument maker.
Life in the USA
When Charles Fey was 23 he had enough money to travel and decided to follow his uncle who moved to the USA, New Jersey. Charles traveled all over the USA and finally reached San Francisco, California where started working at Electric Works company. Later he started his own company together with Theodore Holtz: this company worked with electrical equipment and telephones.
1895 had become a year of the first slot machine’s birth: Charles Fey presented “Liberty Bell”; this machine was so popular and loved that such its popularity allowed Mr. Fey to open Slot Machine Factory in 1896.[2]
References
- ^ California Death Index
- ^ Charles Fey at SlotsMachinesHistory.com
External links
Categories:- 1862 births
- 1944 deaths
- People from Vöhringen, Bavaria
- German emigrants to the United States
- American people of German descent
- Slot machines
- American inventors
- American engineer stubs
- Gambling stubs
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