Cross Roads

The Stoner Manufacturing Company's 1935 Cross Roads is a rare and mechanically elaborate example of mid-1930s electro-mechanical pinball. For five cents, players received ten balls per game, and the machine's playfield incorporated 32 trap holes, five ball kickers, two vertical ball elevators, two ball advance lanes, and a gobble hole — an unusually complex arrangement of features for its era, with no traditional outhole trough since every pocket scored points.

Gameplay centered on the desirable brown-colored scoring areas of the playfield. Balls entering either of the two red-caged vertical elevators were lifted onto an aerial habitrail leading to an X-shaped elevating "bridge" that changed position to route balls to different exits. Skillfully shooting a ball into the topmost gobble hole would raise the bridge, and only the bottom center kicker was "live," activating all five kickers simultaneously when triggered. A system of gates, opened by hitting specific trap holes, added an unusual level of strategic depth for a machine of this period.

Cross Roads' theme centers on railroads, trains, and transportation, a popular subject for novelty games of the era. The machine was powered by 6-volt batteries rather than standard AC wiring, another distinctive engineering choice. As with much of Stoner's output from this period, Cross Roads remains a fascinating, if still not fully understood, example of the mechanical inventiveness found in pre-flipper pinball design.