Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
ERTL, Frederick
Family History: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=060806&id=I04673
ERTL, Frederick. (Germany, May 28, 1905--Dubuque, IA, Nov. 27, 1983). Ertl came to Dubuque in 1923 and worked as a molder at ADAMS COMPANY (THE) before starting a toy company with his wife in the basement of their Dubuque home before WORLD WAR II.
The first big order for ERTL COMPANY INC. came from Deere and Company which ordered 100,000 toy tractors as a promotional item. Several expansions were made in the company before it was moved to Dyersville in 1959. By 1967, when the Ertl Company was sold to the Victor Comptometer Corporation of Chicago, the operation earned an annual revenue of $4.5 million.