Blocks, skates, and wagons are some of the toys Nebraskans have enjoyed since the nineteenth century.
From left, architectural and alphabet building blocks from the 1880s; Balky Mule tin wind-up toy, about 1903; roller skates with wooden wheels patented in 1883; Plains Indian top and wooden chiming top; 1876 tabletop croquet set; clay, glass, and pottery marbles; dominos from 1899; 1914 Tinkertoy set; and 1920s teddy bear.
John Nelson Fuller of Beatrice, Nebraska, made this sleigh in 1873 for his four-year-old daughter, Leila. He used hickory and hackberry wood purchased from the nearby Oto-Missouria Indian reservation.
Homer Lewis Keech of Lincoln, Nebraska, played with the wooden wagon made by the Hunt, Helm, Ferris & Company prior to 1900. Kathleen Courshon of Chadron, Nebraska, received the red and green toy wagon at right, patterned after farm wagons of the day, as a gift in 1893.
Wayne, Vernon, Billy, and George are ready to roll in Neligh, Nebraska, about 1920.
[RG1794.PH:3-pg. 29d]
Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck offered goat harnesses by mail, similar to the one in this photograph, which was probably taken in Alliance, Nebraska, during the 1910s.
[RG1802.PH:2-pg. 34]
