Locals didn’t want to see “the iconic name and brand moved out of the region.”įortunately, Just Play stepped in. “There’s always a little bit of concern anytime something shuts,” says Fox. Slinky has changed hands a few times since the late 90s, and things looked grim last spring, when the then-owner of the brand suddenly shuttered the factory. When she died at the age of 90 in 2008, her New York Times obituary noted that the number of Slinkys sold since the 1940s topped 300 million-enough to circle the Earth 150 times. She helmed the Slinky business for 38 years. Betty James moved James Industries to her native region Slinkys have been made in a Hollidaysburg factory since 1964.īetty James always believed that Slinky should be an affordable toy, accessible to all children regardless of family income. Richard abandoned Betty, the company, and their six children for a cult in Bolivia, where he died in 1974. Richard and Betty worked together for 15 years, but sales slumped in 1960. The toy didn’t take off until 1945, when a Christmastime display in Philadelphia’s Gimbels Department Store sold 400 Slinkys (at a dollar apiece) in 90 minutes. (Betty came up with the name.) The couple formed James Industries, headquartered in Clifton Heights, PA, to manufacture their invention. He teamed with his wife Betty, who was born in Altoona in 1918 and attended Penn State before her marriage, to develop the Slinky. That, James thought, would make an excellent toy. He was developing springs that could be used to stabilize instruments onboard ships in rough waters, and in Slinky lore, he accidentally bumped a few springs and watched them “walk” their way from a shelf, to a stack of books, to a table, to the floor. James invented the Slinky in 1943 while stationed in a Philadelphia shipyard. “Every Slinky in the world is made there,” says Matt Fox, director of business expansion at Altoona Blair County Development Corporation. Now, the Slinky factory in Hollidaysburg is getting new life thanks to an acquisition by global toy company Just Play, which is also based in Pennsylvania. Slinky is one of the world’s most recognizable toys, but not everyone is aware of its Pennsylvania roots - a factory outside Altoona made the iconic toy for decades before closing down earlier this year.
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