Louis Marx and Co. play sets are on sale at the 24th annual Marx Toy and Train Collectors Show at the Kruger St. Toy and Train Museum in Elm Grove. (Photo by Lauren Taylor)

WHEELING — Trains, planes, boats and toy soldiers lined 80 tables at the 24th annual Marx Toy and Train Collectors Show on Friday at the Kruger Street Toy and Train Museum in Elm Grove.

The two-day show attracts vendors and collectors from across the United States to buy, trade and sell Louis Marx and Co. collectible toys, with the show continuing today from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Allan Miller, president of the museum, says the event is inspired by the rich history of Louis Marx and Co. manufacturing in the Ohio Valley.

“We absolutely want to honor and preserve the history of toys in the Ohio Valley,” he said. “What was Marx, how was it connected to toys, how was this so incredibly innovative and so incredibly different from what was out there? And it was people right here in the valley that produced all this stuff.”

Louis Marx and Co. was established in 1919 and quickly rose to fame throughout the 1920s. The company established three manufacturing warehouses in Erie and Girard, Pennsylvania, and Glen Dale, West Virginia in the early 1930s.

The Glen Dale factory became the largest of the three manufacturing locations producing dollhouses, trucks, airports, plastic miniature figurines and the popular Big Wheel tricycle.

Louis Marx and Co. became the largest toy manufacturer in the world in the 1940s and 1950s.

Becky Gerlack, Kruger Street Toy and Train museum manager, says although the event has a huge historical background, she wants attendees to feel like a kid again.

“It started off just off of one little toy and this gentleman built it up to one of the biggest companies in America and actually in the world,” she said. “We want people to have fun, relive their childhood, enjoy and maybe learn a little bit.”

The annual collectors show celebrates the historical and local legacy of Marx Co. toys while providing vendors an avenue to meet other collectors and take a trip down memory lane.

Mark Hagerman is a native of Potomac, Maryland, and has been attending the Marx Toy and Train Collectors Show for 23 years. He says the event is just as much a social gathering as it is an opportunity for him to broaden his collection.

“It’s really the camaraderie that makes this particular show special,” he said. “The fact that it is at the museum, and you get a chance to take a look and see all the stuff that’s in the museum, is also really amazing.”

The show boasts 35 vendors with upwards of 80 tables of displays all selling Louis Marx and Co. toys and other collectible toys and play sets. The museum also hosted guest speaker presentations from a former Marx Toy Factory artist and an expert on Marx Toys trains.

Miller says he hopes his museum and its events keep the legacy of Louis Marx and Co. alive but also have at least one toy every person who passes through recognizes from their own childhood.

“Marx is just the most amazing toymaker that was out there, it has a local connection but we didn’t want to be just the Marx museum because that is static,” he said. “That’s somebody else’s toys, somebody else’s experience, and we want everybody who walks in the door to have the experience that this is their own childhood brought back to life.”