Welcome to the Toy Store-y, where you meet some of your favorite toys, and find out the story behind each of them!

Lincoln Logs

Japan has an earthquake problem – around 1,500 a year (although many tremors are too small to be felt). Any building in Japan has to be made using special techniques, fitting wooden beams together perfectly.

Frank Lloyd Wright, a world-famous American architect, was in Tokyo, Japan, to supervise the building of a hotel in 1916, along with his 20-year-old son, John. As John watched the wood being put together, he had a brainwave. Back in Illinois, he designed a construction set of interlocking wooden logs that could be used to make forts, houses, or cabins. He called his new toy “Lincoln Logs” after President Abraham Lincoln, who grew up in a log cabin.

Yo-Yo

Thought you were the first person to master “walk the dog?” Actually, the yo-yo is a really, really ancient toy.

In 1928, Pedro Flores, a Philippine immigrant to the US who worked as a hotel bellhop, used to play with the toy on his lunch breaks. The hotel guests were intrigued, and Mr. Flores realized that he might have a lucrative business opportunity in his hands. He began manufacturing the toys, calling them “yo-yo,” meaning “come-come,” in his native language. Shortly after, Donald F. Duncan — an American entrepreneur and father of the Good Humor ice cream bar — bought Flores out. Since then, Duncan’s company has sold more than half a billion yo-yos!