Local Wanders

Walking into Maple Landmark Woodcraft is like taking a nostalgic trip back in time before electronics and plastic toys filled up children’s playpens. Colorful, hand-crafted wooden trains, building blocks, swords and trucks line the shelves of the factory store and the pungent smell of sawdust permeates the air. Although visitors can purchase any of the company’s full line of products, I would recommend taking a factory tour to get a behind-the-scenes look at the nation’s only extant wooden toy factory.

Owner Mike Rainville’s interest in woodworking started in his teens when he would make items out of wood scraps in his grandfather’s basement. After graduating from Clarkson University in 1984, Rainville started up his own full-time business, Maple Landmark Woodcraft, in Lincoln, Vt. The business’ name, “Maple Landmark,” appropriately came from his parents’ maple sugaring business and dairy farm — Maple Landmark Homestead. In 1996 the business moved its factory to Middlebury, and in 2001 Maple Landmark consolidated operations with Montgomery Schoolhouse, another successful Vermont-based wooden toy business.

The business is very much family-operated. Mike Rainville’s wife and co-owner Jill, sister Barbara, mother Pat and grandmother Harriet all work for Maple Landmark Woodcraft to this day.

“I think one of the reasons our business is successful is because people like our story,” said Barbara Rainville as she led me through a factory tour.

The production area consisted of several sectionalized rooms which each served a specific step in the manufacturing process. The raw planks of wood (either maple or pine) must first be shaped and cut into specific forms by several machines including the molder which cuts all four surfaces of the wood at once. While I was visiting, large planks of maple wood were being shaped into thinner strips which would ultimately become dominoes.

One of the more interesting steps of production was the finishing process. All of the dyes and polyurethane finishes used at Maple Landmark meet federal regulatory standards and come from C.E. Bradley Laboratories in Brattleboro, Vt.

A recent, nationwide demand for safer products that do not contain any dyes jump-started the Schoolhouse Naturals line of wooden toys which was launched in 2008. Schoolhouse Naturals are either unfinished completely (like rattles and teethers for infants) or coated with Naturoil — an FDA-approved, plant based finish which gives products a rich amber appearance.

Maple Landmark’s most popular product, NameTrains, makes up about 50 percent of total business and has been produced for the last 12 years. NameTrains are composed of several magnetized parts — the caboose, engine, and individual colorful wooden letters that are all on wheels. Children spell their names with the letters and stick them together with the other magnetized parts to make a train which can ride on a wooden track.

Due to the immense popularity of this product, the factory invested in a one-of-a-kind machine which adds the magnets to the NameTrain letter cars. This machine — logically named the Magnet Machine — cut back the amount of workers required to complete this one step and increased output productivity exponentially. The Rainvilles have to be very innovative when it comes to finding new ways to increase production efficiency because there are not any other comparable factories where they can seek advice.

“Since we’re the only wooden toy factory in the country we have to solve our own problems,” said Barbara Rainville.

The toy factory tries to operate in an environmentally-friendly manner and deals primarily with local retailers. The raw maple and pine lumber is purchased at Lathrop’s Maple Supply, a sustainably harvested wood supplier in Bristol, Vt. Unused wood is never wasted at Landmark Maple. Scrap pieces are put in a bin in front of the factory for anyone to take or entire bins of scraps can be purchased for $10. Wood shavings are filtered through a factory-wide ventilation system which is connected to a silo where the shavings are collected for a local farmer to use as bedding for his calves.

As the only existing wooden toy factory in the United States, Maple Landmark Woodcraft has been able to survive in an industry dominated by new technology and foreign competition. Despite the numerous toy hazard recalls in recent years, the Rainvilles have provided safe, hand-crafted toys for the past 26 years.

“I believe people just have a desire to buy natural, American-made toys,” said Barbara Rainville as she concluded the factory tour and led me back to the storefront, where I was once again enchanted by the colorful toys of a bygone era.