Local Boy Scout donates handmade vintage toys to museum

Boy Scout Bridger Toone of Mesquite enjoys the checkerboard he made for the Virgin Valley Heritage Museum, Mesquite, Nevada, undated | Photo courtesy of the Virgin Valley Heritage Museum, St. George News

MESQUITE, Nev. — As part of his Eagle Scout project, local Boy Scout Bridger Toone recently donated a collection of handmade vintage toys to the Virgin Valley Heritage Museum.

“I thought that the project might be easy and fun and that it would help the museum,” Toone said. “It was fun, but there were challenges and it took more thought and time than I first thought.”

In the end, Toone and others donated over 100 man-hours of work to complete the project over the summer.

Part of those 100 man-hours came from 11- and 12-year-old girls, who made yarn and husk dolls. Other local adults and fellow Scouts helped cut out and sand wooden animal jigsaw puzzles, construct a pulling duck with a wagon attached, and build an oversized checkerboard.

Toone told about how he got the checkers. Apparently, the materials that he wanted to use for the checkers were cost prohibitive based on his project budget. A local Ace Hardware employee introduced Toone to the distributor of the checkers. When the distributor, who is an Eagle Scout himself, found out that the materials were for an Eagle Scout project, he donated them.

“Often, we have young families at the museum and you’ll hear parents say ‘don’t touch,'” museum coordinator Elspeth Kuta said. “This project gives young children something that they can touch and play with while Mom and Dad look around the museum. I love how the toys are similar to those local children played with at the beginning of last century. I am so grateful to Bridger for his work.”

For more information about this event and the museum, call (702) 346-5705. The museum is located at 35 West Mesquite Boulevard and is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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