CLINTON TO BUILD 100,000 HOMES

Rich Industries, a dollhouse and toy manufacturer, plans to build 100,000 homes in Clinton this year for this exploding national market. But that's not all: 15,000 doll walkers, 15,000 toy wagons, 25,000 hobby horses, 80,000 milk wagons, 150,000 barn sets, and 150,000 small toys, including trains, horses, and wagons. The company, which came to Clinton in 1934, employing between 50 and 75 employees, now employs more than 200. (The Clinton Herald, August 23, 1946)

The vast popularity of Colleen Moore's magnificent dolls' castle, inspired, in the 1930's, almost a toy industry of its own. There were many Colleen Moore toys manufactured - such items as dolls' house food and dishes and baking sets.

As in all fields of antiques, prices have so mounted in recent years, that such late, commercially made items have become, to use a term of relatively recent vintage, "collectable." This "Colleen Moore Doll House," manufactured by the Rich Toy Company of Clinton, Iowa, and sold by Marshall Field in Chicago in 1934 with Tootsietoy furniture, is an example. The eight room house is of masonite, brightly painted.

Colleen Moore Doll House web site: