Midway

Midway Manufacturing Company occupies a unique position in Chicago amusement history — a name that became synonymous with video arcade games in the 1970s and 1980s, but whose roots stretch back to the earliest days of pinball. The original Midway Pattern Company produced pin games in Chicago as early as 1932, and the Midway name remained associated with coin-operated amusements through multiple corporate incarnations spanning nearly half a century.

Midway’s pinball catalog is predominantly Electromechanical, with designers including Iggy Wolverton and Ron Halliburton contributing to a body of work that ranged from early 1930s pin games through mid-1970s machines like TV Flipper (1975) and Desert Gun (1977). The company also produced a small number of Solid State titles. Artists Jerry Kelley and Rich Scafidi provided backglass and playfield artwork that gave Midway’s later machines a distinctive visual identity.

Midway’s most significant corporate chapter came not in pinball but in video games, where the company distributed Pac-Man, Galaga, and other era-defining titles for the American market. In 1988, Midway became a subsidiary of WMS Industries — the parent company of Williams and Bally — further intertwining its story with the two most celebrated names in pinball history. The Midway name’s long journey from Depression-era pin games to arcade video game dominance traces the full arc of Chicago’s amusement manufacturing legacy.