Strombeck Mfg Co, Moline, IL - Ghost Signs on Waymarking.com

The Strombeck - Becker Manufacturing Company
In 1962 the Strombeck Manufacturing Company located at 51st Street and 4th Avenue in Moline, Illinois employed 175 people who made wood doll furniture, wooden model kits and slot car racing sets.
Johan Fredrik Strombeck, or J.F. Strombeck, more commonly known to his family as as "Fred", started his company in 1911 producing tool handles from scrap wood thrown out by the John Deere plant in Moline. From there the company expanded into toys and then pre-carved wooden assembly kits starting with a series of locomotives seen at the "Wings of a Century" pageant at the 1933 Chicago world's Fair where many historic locomotives had been placed on exhibit. Wooden airplane kits followed in 1936 and soon expanded to ships and military vehicles.
World War Two saw model kit production greatly reduced and replaced with war items. A Spotter series of wooden airplane models to train airplane spotters during the war gave high school students an education in building kits and contributing to the war effort.
Post war product offerings included plastic parts to add detail to the wooden kits and water soluble decals. In 1955 Strombecker introduced its first all plastic model kit to compete in that growing market. Starting in 1957, StromBecKer issued the first kits from the popular Disney productions "Man In Space" and "Mars And Beyond".
Strombecker hit the plastic model car kit market in 1959 with a line of 1/24 scale, injection-molded plastic cars which had the option of being equipped with an electric motor; the motorized car came with an onboard battery box so it could be run free style using a ratchet-held steering arrangement. The motorized version was also recommended to be used on a tether (with slip ring) which allowed the car to rotate around a pylon containing larger "D" cells (Pylon Kit No. D48) which powered the car in lieu of the onboard batteries.
The first Strombecker slot car sets were probably marketed around the end of 1959 or early 1960 and they were the first U.S. manufactured slot car sets. The set incorporated a 7-inch wide, 2-track arrangement using dual brass strips arranged adjacent to the "slot."
Due to financial losses Cosmo/Dowst (producing TootsieToys) bought the Strombecker toy line in 1961 and TOOTSIETOY became a division of the Strombecker Corporation. On November 1, 2004 the Strombecker Corporation and Processed Plastic Company merged their two companies into a new entity, Tootsietoy Corporation. Following on the heels of this merger, the latest in the checkered recent history of the Strombecker Corp. developed on July 15, 2005, putting to an end the name "Strombecker" on corporate rolls.
Nine months after merging with the then-oldest surviving toy company in America, Strombecker Corp.-Tootsietoy, Processed Plastic Company sold its intellectual property assets to J. Lloyd International of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, under the terms of a state liquidation auction.
*source Lost Illinois Manufacturing facebook page

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