Dude Ranch

The Dude Ranch pinball machine, manufactured by the Genco Manufacturing Company of Chicago in 1940, is an example of pre-flipper electro-mechanical pinball. A trade article dated August 3, 1940 indicates that test games were on location in July of that year, pinning down its release with unusual precision for the era.

As a flipperless, single-player game, Dude Ranch relies on its playfield hardware for all the action: seventeen passive bumpers topped with distinctive bell-shaped caps. Players launch the ball and coax it through the bumper field, with skill limited to plunger control and careful nudging.

The game's theme combines the Western dude ranch setting with imagery of women, a common attention-getting combination in coin-op art of the period. Little else is documented about the machine's designer or production, leaving Dude Ranch as an intriguing snapshot of Genco's output in the years just before America's entry into World War II.