Given The Tryon Toy-Makers and Wood-Carvers incredibly close ties with the history of Tryon, the Toy Makers House will be open Saturday, September 4, as part of Tryons 125th birthday celebration. The museum will open after Tryons Big Heritage Parade downtown at 11 a.m. and will remain open until 4 p.m.

Sunday, September 5, will be the official grand opening reception of The Toy Makers House Museum, located in the original Toy House at 43 East Howard Street in Tryon. On September 5, 1925, the Toy House first opened its doors to the public. The museum is celebrating this by holding the Toy Makers House Museum Grand Opening 85th Anniversary Reception. Sundays grand opening reception begins at 4 p.m. and ends at 8 p.m.

Both events at The Toy Makers House Museum will have free toy making classes for children, food, drink, live music and costume contests. Any person or pet who visits the museum Saturday or Sunday dressed as a toy, Morris the Horse (Tryons mascot who was originally made by the Tryon Toy-Makers and Wood-Carvers, and gifted to The Tryon Riding & Hunt Club), or Eleanor Roosevelt (who gave her 4th of July address to Tryon from the Toy Houses front terrace in 1934) will receive a contemporary wooden toy, a museum sticker and a certificate of participation.

The museum will educate all to the memories, history, art and knowledge that were and still are the toy house. The museums motto is Keeping Creativity Alive at the Toy Makers House. Art, History and Imagination Will Always Reside Here.

The Toy Makers Museums focus and planned activities include:

Increasing the publics awareness and knowledge of the art and history of Tryon, The Toy Makers House, and the Tryon Toy-Makers and Wood-Carvers.

Enhancing public knowledge of the history of toys and furniture that were created at the Toy Makers House by the Tryon Toy-Makers and Wood-Carvers.

Creating more interest in history, art, Tryon and the surrounding the areas of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Educating the public on the traditions of wood working and its aspects in traditional toys. These will include the history created in Tryon by Charlotte Yale and Eleanor Vance.

In a keeping creativity alive at the Toy Makers House mindset the museum will offer art classes.

Given the Toy-Makers and Wood-Carvers close tie with nature and the trees that were formed into all of their craft, the museum hopes to also include a natural garden area for picnicking and education on the trees and nature that surround the museum.

A museum gift shop is also planned that will feature original handmade arts that will include hand-carved wooden vessels, pottery, glass and handmade wooden toys from contemporary artists.

Art exhibitions of original toys, furniture and wood works created at The Toy Makers House and by contemporary artists that exemplify the creative artistry that was originally created there will be held at the museum.

The museum will also have historical exhibitions informing the area of the N.C. history that The Toy Makers House holds. These exhibitions will include The Toy Makers Houses national and international reputation, its contribution to not only N.C. but the entire region and the historical elements that the wood-works and toys that were created there include.

Other exhibitions focusing on the many aspects of womens studies that took place at The Toy Makers House are planned. Some examples include three First Wives who visited The Toy Makers House including Eleanor Roosevelt who gave a speech to the Town of Tryon from the front steps of The Toy Makers House, all of the incredible accomplishments that Yale and Vance made come to realization and the fact that they did this in the early 1900s. At the time this certainly set a new standard for the area.