The Rock-Ola Scale Company was founded in 1927 by David Cullen Rockola to manufacture coin-operated entertainment machines. During the 1920s, Rockola was linked with Chicago organized crime and escaped a jail sentence by turning State's Evidence. Mr. Rockola added the hyphen because people often mispronounced his name. The name was changed to Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation in 1932. The company successfully expanded its production line through the Great Depression to include furniture. Starting in 1935, Rock-Ola sold more than 400,000 jukeboxes under the "Rock-Ola" brand name, which predated the rock and roll era by two decades, and is thought to have inspired the term.