Dyersville’s Farm Toy Fame Started with Ertl Family

This weekend is the National Farm Toy Show in Dyersville.

As the largest farm toy show in the world, it’s known as the “Granddaddy of All Toy Shows”. Over the years, thousands of people have come from across the country and the world to buy and sell farm toys. This year’s show features more than two hundred exhibitors from around twenty states selling toys and collectibles at several locations across town.

They all come to Dyersville because of what one family started nearly eighty years ago. Joe Ertl says the Ertl Company was created by his father, Fred Ertl Sr., in the basement of their home.

Joe says the family would all pile into the car and sell the farm toy tractors to local implement dealers for a dollar a piece. After his father made a copy of a John Deere tractor, John Deere ordered 100,000 tractors, which the family made in the basement of their home. Eventually, they built a small 40-by-20 foot building to serve as a factory near their home on the west side of Dubuque, with around half a dozen employees and five kids working for the company in those early years. They outgrew the three-quarters of an acre lot they had on the edge of Dubuque, but they didn’t receive much cooperation there as they tried to find more room to build – so they searched for a new home in eastern Iowa to grow their company.

The Ertl Company became internationally known by the 1960s, with Joe branching out in the 1970s to start his own farm toy manufacturing company – which led to the birth of Scale Models. At 88 years old, Joe is still involved with the company and with Toy Farmer’s National Farm Toy Show too – he says they’ll have a table at Beckman Catholic High School this weekend.

Joe says he’s proud of the legacy his family created – and thankful too.

The 46th Annual National Farm Toy Show and Auction runs through Sunday in Dyersville.

photos courtesy of Ertl Company