Another Team Dim Bulb cache showing off some Akron Pride.
Turns out Akron was not only the rubber capital back in the day,
she was also the toy capital. Read this excerpt below for more
info.
The modern American toy industry began in 1884, when Akronite
Samuel C. Dyke invented the first fully mass-produce toy – a clay
marble. This allowed the price of a toy to plummet and for the
first time all children could afford to buy a toy with their own
money, a penny bought a handful of marbles.
The success of Dyke’s Akron Toy Company, spurred other local
entrepreneurs to start up their own marble works. In 1891 Sam Dyke
founded The American Marble & Toy Manufacturing Company, the
largest toy company to operate in the United States during the
1800's. Eventually, over three dozen marble factories were
operating in the greater Akron area. Making all types and styles of
marbles from clay, stone, hand-made glass to those we know today,
the machine-made glass marble.
Around the same time, men working on the other side of town
looking for new uses for rubber, took notice of this new children’s
market and turned out the first mass-produced rubber toys,
balloons, balls, dollies, duckies and rubber baby buggy bumpers.
Other local companies made cast iron and tin toys, also bicycles,
peddle toys, tops, children’s books, etc. and sporting goods like
golf balls, fishing tackle, etc.
Nearly 100 toy companies have operated in the greater area of
Akron, Ohio since 1884.
For
more info about Akron Marbles, click here!
The non-profit Akron Marble Museum is just 40 feet from the
cache. It's only open on Saturdays with limited hours. Well worth
the visit, not only marbles in this museum but also a blimp and
trucking musuem! Check it out!