Kirby’s ‘Grandpa Ben' Makes Old-School Wooden Toys Kids Can Beat The Crap Out Of

KIRBY — When Ben Arthur bought mass-manufactured toys for his grandkids, made cheaply with even cheaper materials, they would often break before the grandkids could get home.

That inspired a nostalgic Arthur to do more than just gripe about how everything was better in the "good old days."

He decided to prove it by making the same tough, old-school wooden toys his own grandfather made for him — and built to be played with hard.

“I got thinking, 'Oh, shoot, I still got some little toys that my grandpa made,'” Arthur said. “When I was a little boy, I played with it, then my kids played with it, and the grandkids played with it.

“These toys are still functional and work.”

Arthur's exasperation led to a hobby making colorful and durable toys for his kids, Stephanie and Jim. Now it is a business he operates out of a trailer-turned-workshop in tiny Kirby, Wyoming.

Arthur has been making his own wooden toys since the 1980s, and has been selling them to generations of local families more than 20 years.

“I thought kids today need to have toys like I had as a kid, so we started building wooden toys, because there is not a lot of that around anymore,” he said.

Arthur said he often loses himself in the process and spends eight hours a day working on toys that bring him as much joy as those who get to play with them.

These days, he splits the time into a morning shift and evening shift so he can get his other chores done, such as gardening and irrigating.

“It was just something we liked to do,” Arthur said. “My reward is just seeing the look on a kid's face when they get ahold of our toys and realize that they can play with them.”

Started With Trucks And Cars

Arthur’s first toys were trucks and cars. He has since expanded into colorful animals and large train sets that his wife, Virginia, paints with non-toxic, kid-friendly paint.

Over the years, he has had customers ask for special orders. He is always up for the challenge.

For the Territorial Park in Laramie, Arthur made little rubber-band guns that were popular with kids and parents.

A woman from the Wyoming State Museum challenged him to make a county-map puzzle. He has now made hundreds of the popular maps.

“My shop doesn't allow me to build furniture so I just stick to the smaller items like piggy banks and the train sets,” Arthur said. “It just worked out well for us.”

Arthur was working toward retirement in Laramie when his toy business first took off.

He had his day job at the University of Wyoming working in the fleet shop and Virginia worked in the financial aid office. At night and on the weekends, Arthur was helping his brother in his construction business.

“I started thinking that maybe some day we'd like to retire, and so I need to find something that we could do that wasn't taxing your body so much,” Arthur said. “It all kind of progressed to the point where we needed to get away from the hustle, bustle of Laramie.”

They started buying used commercial grade tools. As time progressed, Arthur would make a few extra bucks and buy more equipment.  

His favorite find was an old, commercial, cast-iron scroll saw from the Medicine Bow School District.  

Another addition to Arthur’s wood-working business was his uncle’s unique patterns. It had gotten to the point that his uncle could no longer do his own wood working, and Arthur is able to carry on his uncle’s legacy.

“A lot of the patterns were ones he built on his own,” he said. “He came up with his own patterns on a lot of stuff.”

A Toy Assembly Line

Arthur had the same talent as his uncle. Once he sees a pattern, he can generally figure it out and put his own spin on it.

He also has set up his own assembly line so he can produce enough wooden toys to meet the growing demand, although a bigger board puzzle can still take up to six hours to build.

Arthur uses scavenged wood to help keep his prices affordable. He uses leftover wood from building projects and scraps of wood that would normally end up in the landfill.

His favorite wood is from pallets because he never knows what he is going to find.

“I like using the recycled pallets because you don't know what part of the world that comes from,” Arthur said. “They use whatever's cheap when they build those pallets, so you never know what type of wood you will get.”

He explained that the wood is not what you would normally find in Wyoming. A lot of the pallets are shipped in come from eastern woods.

“There’s a lot of oak, walnut, and maple,” Arthur said. “Just scrap wood but when you clean that wood up a little bit, you can see what it is.”

As Arthur watches over kids playing with the toys he has made, he explains the real reason he continues to build the wooden toys like his grandfather before him.

“I do it ’cause it’s fun,” he said.

Contact Jackie Dorothy at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com

Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.