Marx Toy Company
Making Memories in Glen Dale
By Cheryl Harshman
Photographs by Michael Keller
Santa Claus himself supervises assembly line production
at the Marx toy plant in Glen Dale in 1971. At one time, Marx was the
largest toy manufacturer in the world. Photographer unknown, courtesy
of Francis Turner.
Sometimes, the smallest thing can trigger long-forgotten childhood memories
— like a favorite toy, for instance. Do you remember the Big Wheel
cycle? Rock’em Sock’em Robots? How about Johnny West? Did
you have a doll house? A gas station or a Fort Apache play set? Do you
remember poring over the Christmas wish-book catalog when it came each
year? If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, chances
are that you owned, or wished you had owned, one of the many Marx toys
made here in West Virginia.
At one time, Marx toys was the largest toy manufacturer in the world.
At the heart of the Marx enterprise was the largest of its three domestic
toy factories, the mammoth Glen Dale plant. In its heyday, the Glen Dale
facility employed more than 2,000 workers and had multiple buildings in
Glen Dale and McMechen, both located in Marshall County.
In 1946, the Glen Dale factory’s automatic paint line dipped and
baked approximately 3.5 million toys per month. That was just one line,
and that was before plastic toys began production. Ten years later, production
figures of plastic toys and toy parts were in the millions per day.
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