Let’s take a look at Minnesota’s many noteworthy wooden toy brands — Made in Minnesota, for Minnesotans by Minnesotans.
But first a quick fact! The Minnesota state tree is the red pine (pinus resinosa). Popular with Minnesota’s large population of Norwegian descendants, the red pine is also called the Norway pine.
Bridging the past into context — Minnesota was home to Sifo Toys, an American pioneer of wooden pull toys designed for kids to stay active with exercise. From 1944 to 1975, their toys work assembled in St. Paul, Minnesota with parts made in Norway, Michigan — a Norwegian connection indeed!
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Minnesota’s Top 5 Wooden Toy Companies
- (01) Lark Toys – Kellogg, MN
- (02) The Manhattan Toy Company – Minneapolis, MN
- (03) Smiling Tree Toys – Lamberton, MN
- (04) Everwood Friends – Andover, MN
- (05) BEKA Wood Products – St. Paul, MN
(01) Lark Toys
Voted best toy store in Minnesota, Lark Toys has been designing and hand making heirloom wooden toys for over 30 years. Their brick and mortar shop in Kellogg, MN features a life-size wooden carousel that you and your family can ride on.
Having mastered the art of wood staining — Lark Toys are bright beautiful colors while still maintaining beautiful natural wood grains — push and pull toys both large and small, freestanding puzzles, and other toy sets full of colorful figurines.
Visit the Lark Toys official website.
(02) The Manhattan Toy Company
The Manhattan Toy Company is an American pioneer of developmental playthings — Creating age-appropriate toys at a properly attuned level of challenge and delight.
Not from New York! Yes, from Minnesota!
One of their most iconic toy designs is the Skwish — a flexible bungee-style fidget toy that bends, squishes, and bounces back into shape — more advanced than a teether. With over 500 products — many of them wood-based — their design-centric stackers, beads, and activity centers come in small sizes for tabletop play and scale up to large stations as tall as a toddler.
The Manhattan Toy Company makes toys that’d brighten your day when found in a children’s daycare center, preschool, or dentist’s office waiting room — durable, engaging, and totally hands-on. (Their designs are exquisitely American and well-known across the country, and their manufacturing has mostly moved to Asia.)
See The Manhattan Toy Company on Amazon.
Visit The Manhattan Toy Company’s official website.
(03) Smiling Tree Toys
A purpose-driven Lamberton, MN toy company for families who love the earth — they plant a tree for every toy sold!
Offering an all-natural range of hardwood toys with an organic wood finish — they’ll even etch a name into the surface of the wood, making it a perfect keepsake for years to come. Highly recommended!
See Smiling Tree Toys on Etsy.
Visit the Smiling Tree Toys official website.
(04) Everwood Friends
Made from solid maple and bejeweled with sparkling gems — Everwood’s simple wooden unit blocks create a friendly space filled with wonder and happiness!
Especially aesthetic are Everwood Friends’ gem blocks — all natural sustainable solid maple wood blocks with sparkly acrylic gems embedded inside. These are honest-to-goodness open-ended toys that’ll add a little sparkle into your life!
Visit the Everwood Friends official website.
(05) BEKA Wood Products
Specializing in children’s art easels, weaving looms, and building toys — their purposeful products work well in Montessori classrooms and at home.
Beka’s famous “Beka Blocks” are made from sustainably harvested hard maple and cut into special “made-for-building” shapes — like towering columns and prong-shaped bridges.The diversely-shaped pieces are quite large, which gives children a really unique hands-on play experience.
Visit the Beka Toys official website.
(06) Little Wooden Wonders
100% biodegradable wooden toys made for environmentalist families, by an environmentalist family. Wooden Wonders for natural wooden toys made from maple, walnut, or cherry and finished with organic jojoba oil and natural beeswax.
For babies and toddlers, their teethers, rattle toys, name blocks, and name puzzles, and push toys play well in-hands and to display well on the mantle.
The company was founded in Chanhassen, MN by a mom searching for chemical-free lead-free toys that wouldn’t add to the world’s expanding landfills.
See Little Wooden Wonders on Etsy.
Visit the Little Wooden Wonders official website.
(07) DoodleTown Toys
DoodleTown Toys is a classic North Star State wooden toy company — in business for over 30 years. Based in Big Lake, MN — DoodleTown has a great collection of handcrafted wooden push toys and building blocks — to keep your kid unplugged and engaged.
Visit the DoodleTown Toys official website.
(08) World’s Greatest Bath Boats
Born from a love story between a Minnesota couple — back in 1974, they took the plunge and started their wooden bath boats company.
Bath boats make for a unique, personalized, collectible gift. And don’t worry — they’re durable too! When people ask the McDill’s how long they last, they respond, “The first ones we made are still floating!”.
Visit the World’s Greatest Bath Boats official website.
(09) Kringle Workshops
Kringle Workshops makes large size wooden push toys from sustainable pine, oak, birch, and maple. For an heirloom quality toy suited for toddlers — they’re assembled with child-safe glue and left unfinished. Based in Lake Elmo, MN, every single push toy sold by Kringle Workshops comes with the Kringle Elf logo branded onto the surface of the wood.
Dedicated to the craft of heavy-duty toy making, their rugged line of push toys includes tow trucks, log trucks, and flatbeds — service vehicles such as fire trucks — farm equipment such as tractors and combines.
See Kringle Workshops on Etsy.
(10) You Name It Toys
Based in Corcoran, MN — You Name It Toys crafts over 100 different styles of wooden puzzles and puzzle stools. The company is called “You Name It” — because you literally make a puzzle customized with your name on it.
Beyond personalized name puzzles, you’ll find all sorts of educational puzzles — like geography maps, alphabet spellers, and clocks to tell time!
(11) Handcrafted Buffalo
Made in Saint Peter, MN with popular picks like a wooden slingshot to propel felt balls and touchably fuzzy garlands to decorate a room — they’re beautiful, natural, and a wonderful sensory experience.
Handcrafted Buffalo does wonders with the simple materials of wood, felt balls, rubber bands, and string.
See Handcrafted Buffalo on Etsy.
(12) Mama P’s Place
Mama P makes Montessori-inspired prints and crocheted items with a limited selection of wooden toys — including an activity board with screws, a sewing kit framed by wooden hoop, and other wood-centric craft activities.
From Shakopee, MN — Mama P encourages toddlers to develop fine motor and problem solving skills through the power of play.
(13) Stillpoint Woodworks
Stillpoint Woodworks is a maker of tiny hardwood toys based in Pine Island, MN. Barbie doll enthusiasts take kindly to their wooden furniture scaled-down Barbie-sized — including fashionable clothes racks and sittable sling chairs.
Milling their own lumber before getting busy in the woodshop — they also make tiny sized “Thimble Cars” as small as a fingernail plus “Peanut Cars and Trucks” about as long as a coffee mug — teeny tiny push toys with working wheels.
See Stillpoint Woodworks on Etsy.
(14) TLC Toys
TLC Toys is a non-profit organization that’s been making toys for less fortunate children since 1991. What started as a woodworking hobby turned into a passion to show kids with difficult circumstances that someone cares.
You can support TLC toys by making a donation or — if you’re nearby Ramsey, MN — by volunteering to make toys yourself!
Visit the TLC Toys official website.
A Minnesota Toy Making Time Capsule
- MOD Playhouse — Until the year 2022, MOD Playhouse created innovative eco-friendly children’s toys from Duluth, MN. They brought the fun and adventure of an American camping trip indoors in mini-sized wooden camper toys, canoes, pickup trucks, tents, and finger puppets.
- Peg & Plum — For over 10 years until the year 2022, Peg & Plum was a Minneapolis, MN maker of bright and imaginative peg dolls painted to perfection. Especially interesting in the area of personalization, Peg & Plum offered to paint your entire family onto peg dolls — working from a family photo — it’s your family peg-ified!
- Epiphany GFX — Until the year 2021, Epiphany GFX was Minnesota’s go-to shop for Montessori-inspired wooden busy boards. Made in exciting bold colors — not only did they keep toddlers entertained — but they’d also teach useful life skills like zipping zippers and locking locks.
