Garton Toy Company, Sheboygan Wisconsin

Date added: August 23, 2023 Categories: Wisconsin Industrial

View looking northwest at Water St. elevations of plant and office building (1999)

The Garton Toy Company was founded in Sheboygan in 1879 by Eusebius Bassingdale Garton. Garton first settled in Sheboygan Falls in 1863, along with two brothers, originally from Ontario, Canada. He first worked in Sheboygan Falls driving an ox team for the Richardson Brothers planing mill. He then worked for J. J. Zufelt, manufacturing wagon wheel hubs until June 1873, when he took the foremanship of a department in the Sheboygan Manufacturing Company in Sheboygan, a planing mill and box factory on 8^th Street north of the bridge. He worked there until 1878, when he accepted the foremanship of one of the divisions in the Sheboygan Carriage Company, where he got his first experience in toy manufacturing. The following year, in 1879, Garton seized the opportunity to buy the property of the Sheboygan Manufacturing Company from J. Dengel, and founded the toy manufacturing company with a partner, James M. Logan. The business initially manufactured household items such as fish boxes and washboards, and soon added carriage industry-related items formerly produced by the Sheboygan Carriage Company. Logan left the business within a year and sold his interest to a Mr. Griffith and a Mr. Walters. The company was then known as Garton, Griffith & Co.

In 1882, the company introduced the coaster wagon, entirely built of wood, which according to the Garton family is said to have been the first of its kind. The family story is that Garton's first model for it was a cigar box with wood wheels. Not only a toy, the wagon was used by adults to cart items, much as they are today.

During these years the company grew rapidly and added several buildings of its own to this complex. By 1886, the company was already described in the local press as "a mammoth Sheboygan industry." The company was incorporated in 1887 with Eusebius Garton as its president, a position that he maintained until his death in 1931.

The company occupied the 8^th Street buildings until a devastating fire in 1891, which leveled the buildings. Garton was solicited to relocate by an offer of $25,000 and land by a south side Chicago business promotion company, but instead accepted an offer of land near the Sheboygan River, on Niagara and North Water streets. Garton liked Sheboygan, its access to the lumber sources of northern Wisconsin, thus lower costs, as well as the access to the markets of Milwaukee, Chicago and beyond. The company then built three and four-story timber and frame buildings on blocks 124 & 125, on the block across old Water Street from the present buildings. The buildings fronted on Niagara Avenue, with access to rails, and were connected by a third-story bridge to a warehouse east of 11^th Street. By 1895, the company had 75 employees and had annual sales of about $75,000.

Within this facility, the company continued to produce toys which reached a broad market throughout the country through national catalog sales and distribution houses. Over the years the company added toys and children's furniture, including croquet sets, toy wicker chairs, willow carriages, sleds, toy cradles, parlor swings (hung in doorways between rooms), and coaster wagons. By the close of the century, they had introduced velocipedes, tricycles, and, in 1904, the first of the pedal cars. The company made these products for major department retailers, including Montgomery Wards and Sears, as well as a retail trade for other department and hardware stores. The company became so well known for its popular red coaster wagons and tricycles, that the color became known in the paint industry as Garton Red.

On May 31^st, 1929, another fire struck, a fire said to be the largest in Sheboygan's history. It started at the American Hide and Leather Company's frame buildings on the site of the existing Garton buildings adjoining the river. It quickly spread across N. Water Street to engulf Garton's wood-frame buildings. Garton's losses were estimated at $450,000.

E. B. Garton set about rebuilding immediately. He acquired the recently vacated American Hide and Leather Company complex of brick and frame buildings across Water Street, south of Wisconsin Avenue. He retained his employees by having them adapt the old facilities, and moved in within three months. Business was so brisk, that a four-story brick addition was built during the following year, costing $100,000, with plans drawn by architect William C. Weeks of Sheboygan. The general contractor was Martin De Ny. Prior to the addition, the company had employed 450 people; the increased capacity required 600 employees. The addition was attached to the north wall of the old American Hide and Leather building, occupied the former Wisconsin Avenue right-of-way and a part of block 123. Details of the cornice of the new building were built to match those of the older building. This building is the older one, which remains today. The ground floor (or basement, today) was used for receiving and preparing steel, the second level used for warehousing and shipping, the third level used for warehousing, and the fourth level used for packaging and warehousing.

E. B. Garton died in 1931, at age 88, and the business was taken over by his son, Clarence, who had been working with the company since 1897. E.B. Garton had been a major contributor to the Wesley Hospital of Chicago, the Deaconess Hospital in Green Bay, the Methodist Church in Sheboygan, and Lawrence College.

During these decades the company's profile reached prominence as a major toy manufacturer, both within the industry and in the eyes of the public. With the 1930 addition, Garton Toy Company had boasted the largest production of juvenile wheeled goods under one roof of the four top American toy producers. The company increased its production of sleds and pedal car toys by keeping abreast of production technology and acquiring other companies for their production capabilities and markets. In 1929, Garton had bought the Sidway-Toplitt Company of Washington, Pennsylvania and Elkhart, Indiana for its tool and dies to make pedal cars. During the 1930s, the company added tubular steel furniture to its lines, alongside its rattan children's rockers. In 1937, it bought the two plants of the defunct Sheboygan-based Globe Toy Company, a toy wagon and children's vehicles manufacturer. It is not known how much production, if any, was done within these plants before the properties were sold years later. It is believed that the pedal toy products were manufactured in the main plants, and that the equipment was purchased and removed from the plants of former competitors. Under Clarence Garton, the company expanded its marketing campaign by opening showrooms in major markets across the country. In its 1935-36 catalog, the company listed showrooms and sales offices in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Dallas.

In 1942, Eusebius Garton, the oldest of three sons of Clarence and Elenore Garton, became company president. During that year the company built a modern office building on Block 124, replacing the building they had used during the previous dozen years, the former office building of the American Hide and Leather Company.

The post-war years were very fruitful for the company. Millions of sleds were produced annually, though this represented only 15% of Garton's gross income. Like the other toys, these were often labeled with the brand names of the retailers. A host of new pedal toy lines were added. Showrooms were added in Seattle, Denver, Cincinnati, and Winnipeg, Canada. In 1947 the company built an addition to expand its finished products warehouse. The building, which remains, practically filled the remainder of the lot along the river. This facility incorporated the new shipping department with its crane for the delivery of raw steel products, steel processing, and some of the painting and packing departments, as well as warehousing for finished products. It was served by rail access, as well as trucking bays. This addition brought its production plant on Water Street to a sizable total of 426,000 square feet.

During this period, the company was the fifth-largest employer in Sheboygan. At its peak, the company had 800 employees. Also at this time, Garton Toy Company was among the top four American toy companies and the largest exporter within the 6^th Congressional District.

The Garton Toy Company innovations within the toy manufacturing industry included the invention of the coaster wagon, the one-piece steel-body wagon, the seat scooter, the juvenile auto with electric lights, the use of nylon bearings, and the auto chassis with an overdrive principal.

In 1950, following the death of Eusebius Garton, brothers Robert and David became president and vice president respectively. David Garton also was in charge of sales and under his direction, additional showrooms were added throughout the United States and an export office handled sales in South Africa, Australia and the Philippines. In 1950, the company produced perhaps its most popular pedal car, the Kidillac, which was a hit with both children and adults in the booming post-war era. It was designed by designer Bill Mitchell, who had done some styling for General Motors prior to his Kidillac design. Mitchell later went on to become a vice president of General Motors, the parent company of Cadillac, which had approved the manufacture of the Garton peddle car. Kidillacs even became a promotional item in Cadillac showrooms throughout the country. Hundreds of thousands were produced in Sheboygan.

To modernize the steel production and upgrade the lines, the company built a new factory in 1962, four miles north on County LS, and moved 350 of its employees to that facility. They also sold the office building to the Labor Hall Association, which continues to house the local AFL-CIO union headquarters. Seasonally, they continued to make sleds at the old Garton toy plant (also called the Riverside Plant). Throughout these decades the company also continued to produce tricycles, sidewalk bicycles, pedal cars, croquet sets, snow coasters, sleds, garden equipment, and some furniture.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, increasing concerns for child safety led to consumer protection laws, which made toy production more complicated and expensive. Garton evaluated the costs of revamping the production lines to produce plastics and determined they were cost-prohibitive. The company was sold, in February 1973, to a Milwaukee investment group, the Monitor Corporation, which ceased production of all toy lines within several years. At the time, the company had sales rooms in 18 cities, and a combined total of production and warehouse facilities in Sheboygan of 528,000 square feet. The newer, Lakeshore facility was sold to the Kohler Company engine division, which continues to operate within that facility. After the old Riverside plant was closed, the old tannery buildings built by the American Hide and Leather Company were demolished, leaving the remaining buildings. These were bought by Verifine Dairy for additional storage in 1987.

Building Description

The remaining Garton Toy Company buildings are located near the juncture of Wisconsin Avenue, North 11^th Street, and Water Street, along the Sheboygan River, in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The two adjoining, four-story, masonry, factory buildings parallel the river, west of Water Street, and a one-story office building is located on a triangular lot east of Water Street and fronting on Washington Avenue.

Historically, the extant buildings were a part of a larger complex of buildings of the Garton Toy Company. In fact, this is the third complex of four to have served the company throughout its history. The first complex was located at 8^th Street, just north and east of the bridge. The second complex was across North Water Street and north of the extant buildings. The first two complexes were both consumed by fires in 1891 and 1929 respectively. The third complex is the subject of this nomination. It served the company following the 1929 fire and until the fourth plant, an enormous modern plant, was built in 1963 north of Sheboygan. The buildings in this nomination then served a secondary function until the business and plants were sold and were partly demolished in the 1970s.

After the fire on May 29th, 1929, Garton Toy Company founder and president Eusebius Bassingdale Garton immediately set upon the acquisition and outfitting of a vacant tannery across North Water Street and fronting on the Sheboygan River from his own plant. The block-long complex of brick and frame buildings between North Water Street and the Sheboygan River south of Washington Avenue had been built by the American Hide and Leather Company during the period of the 1880s through the 1920s, when it closed the plant. Garton's employees refurbished the old tannery and commenced operations within three months, at which time the construction of the extant four-story brick building began.

The oldest of the extant buildings, completed in 1930, was attached to the northernmost building of the old tannery built by the American Hide and Leather Company. The 1930 building housed the expanding finishing, packaging, shipping and receiving departments. The quadrangular floor plan reflects the available land on which it was built-filling the vacated Washington Avenue right-of-way and occupying part of block 123 to the north. On the river side of the buildings, a narrow strip of land was left open to permit access for boat shipping, but was never used. The only part of the old American Hide and Leather building remaining is the south face of the building, its former interior side now exposed following the demolition of the rest of the building in the 1970s. The wall had been covered with steel siding, but that blew off in a September 1998 windstorm.

The 1930, four-story, utilitarian-style building is of timber frame construction with a brick bearing exterior wall. The first, or lower level, a half level below grade on the Water Street side, was the receiving level and had windows and doors for rail delivery, which have since been closed with concrete block. Two concrete block, truck loading bays on the street side were built in recent years.

Currently, on the street elevation only three stories are visible; however, the first story is fully exposed on the river elevation due to a grade difference.

The Water Street facade of the building is organized into eleven repetitive bays flanked by a narrow bay at the south end and windows reflecting stair landings at either end. An original, wood-paneled passage door with transom is located at the south end of the street side of the building. The windows are steel industrial utilitarian styled windows with six-by-four panes set in steel frames and pivoting middle sashes on the second and third story. The windows of the fourth floor are six-by-three panes in size. The panes are taller than wide. The top of the pale tan, utilitarian, brick building is capped by a denticulated, corbelled brick cornice, perhaps reflecting the adjoining old brick building to which it was originally attached. The south wall was the common wall with the older building; its demolition is evident in the exposed structural brick piers and the joist and beam pockets in the brick. Some of the original window and door openings in the wall have brick infill, and others have concrete block infill. The river side of the building has a similar appearance, except that it has sets of similar windows with six-by-three panes at the first level and two loading doors, one each at the first and second level. Those of the first level are recent steel doors and those of the second level are wood with glazing panes within the upper half and wood panels below. Original paired wood loading doors are located on the rear of the building.

The interior of the 1930 building has the appearance of much older industrial buildings, with unfinished pine flooring and a steel post and steel-reinforced wood structure that is open. The basement has concrete flooring. This is where raw steel was loaded, stored, washed, and painted. The steel washer pit has been filled in with concrete. Access to upper levels is by means of a large freight elevator and two stairwells built of wood, in masonry stair enclosures. Utilitarian pine flooring is laid throughout the second through fourth levels. Fir joists are 2x14 spaced at 12 inches on center to hold the heavy loads. The floor is badly damaged and in poor condition from the use of heavy loading equipment in recent years. Other than the flooring and the south wall, the building is in excellent condition.

The 1947 addition is nearly equal in street frontage to the 1930 building, though narrowed at its extreme north end to parallel the river. Adjoining the 1930 building to the south, the load-bearing brick construction building matches the floor heights and overall building height of the older building. Both have a joint floor plan which is quadrangular, with no two sides parallel and are of the utilitarian industrial styles of their respective periods. Its Water Street facade has a slight bend to meet the curve of the street and the rail siding, which was within the street right-of-way. The north end is quite narrower than the south end of the building. A concrete, recessed loading dock gallery, perhaps fourteen feet deep, runs most of the length of the building at the second level. Steel posts support the outside wall above. Three wide, wood-paneled passage doors open from the gallery. A taller opening within the loading dock is the location of the steel loading crane which lowered the material through a hatch into the first floor. The window openings in the concrete gray brick walls are generally similar in proportion to those of the 1930 building on the third level, with four-by-four square panes, with hoppers. On the fourth level, most of the windows are broader six-by-four square panes, also with hoppers. Offset windows mark the stairs at the north end of the Water Street elevation. Similar windows and fenestration are on the river side.

The interior of the 1947 addition is built of exposed steel post-and-beam construction, with wood flooring matching the framing of the adjoining building. Birch flooring is laid throughout the third and fourth levels, reflecting their predominant use for storage of finished products, whereas the lower levels have concrete flooring, indicating their use for the handling, finishing and packaging of steel products. In the basement is a large room built for paint storage, and an overhead conveyor for hanging and painting products. It is believed that some, but not all, painting was done in this area. Other than some stress cracking and uneven settling, which is most notable from the river side, the building is in excellent condition.

Across Water Street and fronting on Washington Avenue is the roughly square, one-story, brick office building built in 1942. The building steps up in the center and rear, reflecting the size of the large, central office room, surrounded by smaller offices on three sides. Originally the large office room was lit by horizontal glass block transoms, which are only a two-block-unit-height on the east, south, and west sides of the stepped-up wall, and by tall glass block windows in the north elevation. The glass block transoms of the central office have been obscured from within by a dropped ceiling and on the exterior with roof flashing that partially covers them. The tall glass block windows of the north elevation were largely altered by covering them and installing operable windows in a remodeling. The entrance has glass block sidelights. The broad masonry window openings of the outside walls originally had full plate glass "picture" windows which were replaced with operable, double-hung windows and stucco sheathing in an attempt to provide fresh air, since the building had few, if any, original operable windows. The pinkish-orange brick facing is found on three sides. A recent remodeling of the rear, or north side, of the building covered windows and original materials with an exterior insulating system finish.

Inside the office building, a full basement is largely finished for meeting rooms and offices. Originally, the building was cooled with a water cooling system, presumably drawn from the river. The original, simply-finished door trims and birch doors largely remain. The large office space and the individual offices have carpet over original linoleum flooring. The hallways, however, are original two-toned, green and buff terrazzo. The original ceilings may have been covered with drop-in suspended ceiling systems or ceiling tiles. Some of the walls were likely paneled in the 1960s. Other than alterations to original windows, the building is in excellent condition.