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Most Tryon natives are familiar with the town’s toy-making past. The rest of us are fortunate to have access to Bruce Johnson’s wonderful and thorough history of this tradition, “Biltmore Industries and Tryon Toy-Makers.” And it is a fascinating history!

Every year around this time, I travel by imagination back to the village of Tryon in the early 1930s. The country has been in the grips of a great depression, and Polk County has not escaped its grim effects. It would be two or three years before F. Scott Fitzgerald would sweep into town and hole up at the Oak Hall Hotel, charming locals and eating ice cream every afternoon at Missildine’s. Years before this, two enterprising and somewhat eccentric ladies arrived in Tryon. 

Misses Eleanor Vance and Charlotte Yale had earlier befriended the Vanderbilts and Seelys in Asheville, who were impressed not only by their entrepreneurial flair and artistic talents but also by their generous desire to train locals in the skills they possessed. And the foundations for Biltmore Industries were laid. 

The two determined ladies later found their way to Tryon in 1915 with very little money but a bag of tools and a head full of ideas. The plan was to continue training native youths in wood carving, the way they had done in Asheville. Fortunately, the great New York actor and sometime Tryon resident William Gillette suggested the pair explore making colorfully decorated wood-carved toys in much the same fashion craftsmen did in the Black Forest of Germany. The idea caught on, and the rest, as they say, is history! 

Soon, youthful residents of the town and surrounding countryside were occupying workshops and, under the careful supervision of Eleanor Vance and Charlotte Yale, were using sophisticated tools to turn out Noah’s Arks, animated pull toys, and brightly colored figures of people and animals. And sales soared. 

The toys were made available in the gift shop of the Grove Park Inn in Asheville as well as in some of the finer toy stores and gift shops in New York City. The Tryon toy story even attracted the attention of America’s First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, who personally visited Tryon’s legendary Toy House in July 1934. Impressed by the quality of the toy makers’ work, Mrs. Roosevelt ordered Tryon toys for her own grandchildren and not only became a patron for the important work going on there but also became a good friend to Miss Vance and Miss Yale.

So, I can imagine it is a day close to Christmas. The morning is cold and frosty, with a hint of flurries in the air. The green Southern steamer with its trailing passenger cars has rumbled through town on its climb up to Asheville, and the excitement of the holidays is in the air, even in these challenging times. On the hill overlooking the town are the cheerful workshops where would-be Santa’s elves in homespun are carving and painting pieces for children across America. 

This is a day and time when kids’ toys are fueled by imagination rather than technology. So soon, on Christmas morning, a child in Ohio will be pulling a wooden pig on wheels that bobs and weaves while another in New York will unwrap Noah’s Ark with a whole cast of colorfully painted characters, and the magic will begin! All thanks to two ladies with a dream as big as their hearts!