South Bend Toy Manufacturing Company — croquet sets and doll carriages

1874 – 1985

Two men and a croquet set: In 1874 a grocery clerk, Frederick H. Badet, and a woodworker, John W. Teel, began making croquet balls, mallets, and stakes by hand in their spare time, on the old Mill Race. Croquet was one of the few outdoor games proper young women of the era could play, and the sets sold across the country. In 1888 the firm took the name South Bend Toy Manufacturing Company and moved to 1012 High Street. The Studebaker brothers dealt with it directly: South Bend Toy built youth-size Studebaker farm wagons under an arrangement with the wagon firm. In 1895 the company introduced the first willow doll carriages offered in the American market, hand-woven in the factory, and became — on The History Museum's account — the nation's leading producer of doll carriages as well as croquet sets.

A century of wooden toys: The lines ran on for a hundred years: coaster wagons and wheelbarrows, stick and hobby horses, ball bats, doll furniture and doll houses, goat and dog sulkies, red bow-back chairs and rockers, cedar chests, swimming pools, and toy chests. Production stood at its height until the Second World War, when the plant converted in part to war work — special packaging for military vehicles and aircraft parts made by Studebaker and Bendix — though baby carriages were classed essential and their production continued. The original company was sold in 1957 to Chicago interests headed by Benjamin F. Fohrman and John W. Dorgan, in a purchase the federal courts later picked over in a tax case; South Bend Toy became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Playskool Manufacturing Company of Chicago, and in 1968 the Milton Bradley Company took both Playskool and South Bend Toy in as domestic subsidiaries. In the summer of 1973 the company moved from High Street into the former Bendix Home Appliance plant at 3300 West Sample Street. It closed in 1985, in the years when cheaply made imported toys undercut the wooden-toy trade; the closure cause is stated as the import competition in the toy-trade account and is printed at that size.

Sources:

1. The History Museum, South Bend, "South Bend Toy Company" (Judy Favero) — Badet and Teel's 1874 start; the 1888 naming and the move to 1012 High Street; the Studebaker youth-wagon arrangement; the 1895 willow doll carriages and the national lead in doll carriages and croquet sets; the product lines; the war conversion; the Playskool subsidiary and the 1968 Milton Bradley step; the 1973 move to 3300 West Sample Street; the 1985 closing.
2. City of South Bend, Resolution 320-72 (1972), with the company's own history as submitted to the Economic Development Commission — started 1874 on the old Mill Race by John W. Teel and Frederick H. Badet; named in 1888; the 1895 willow doll carriages as the first presented in the American market; the ownership progression from 1874.
3. F. & D. Rentals, Inc. v. Commissioner, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (1966) — the 1957 purchase of the original company's assets by the Fohrman and Dorgan interests and the corporate chain that followed.
4. Toy Tales, "South Bend Toy Manufacturing Company" — the 1874 founding and the 1985 closure attributed to cheaply made toys from overseas manufacturers.