"Bookie-Blox"

The Beacon Historical Society's latest acquisition is an old building-blocks toy with ties to the Beacon of the 1920s. The toy is called "Bookie-Blox," manufactured in 1922 by the Bookie Blox Company of New Rochelle, New York. The toy, which consists of a set of seven individual hinged, painted  wooden blocks, was donated to the Society by Beacon business owner Brenda Murnane who acquired the blocks  by online auction. Bookie Blox were the patented invention of Charles Douglas Fisher who would move his toy-making factory to Beacon about 1925, and rename it "Toy Krofters."

A native of Wisconsin, Fisher had two sisters with creative talents equal to his. His sister Lola Fisher was an actress on Broadway and in films who died tragically at a young age of tuberculosis. His other sister, Blanche Fisher Wright Laite, was an artist-illustrator who created the drawings in the classic children's book, "The Real Mother Goose," published in 1916, and illustrated many other children's books in the World War I era. It was the paintings of nursery rhymes by Blanche (signed "BFL") that set Bookie-Blox apart from other wooden toys of the era. Each hinged block contained four of Blanche's delightful, whimsical scenes of childhood and nursery rhymes. Thus, Bookie-Blox was a unique building block toy of the 1920s: children could stack them into a variety of shapes while learning their letters and rhymes through Blanche's paintings.

Toy Krofters, located in the top floor of the old Jackson Carriage factory at 380 Main Street, manufactured high-end toys in Beacon from about 1925 to 1930. Beacon Historical is fortunate to now possess three of its toys made here--a Tudor dollhouse, Bookie-Reel, and now Bookie-Blox ... come to our home at 17 South Avenue and view them!