Winchendon's Toy Town Horse returned as a reproduction of the original figure that long helped identify the town as "Toy Town." The original was built in 1914 as a float for the town's 150th anniversary, when Winchendon was home to the Converse Company and the world's largest wooden toy factory. Converse Company workers Fred Dwelley, designer, Charles Tenney, carpenter, Jesse Bezio, wood turner, and John Damon, painter, spent five months constructing it as a four-time enlargement of the company's No. 12 Rocking Horse, using 3,200 feet of two-inch pine nailed together. It stood at the town railroad station for twenty years as a landmark for travelers, appeared in the Sunday edition of the Boston American in 1917, and in 1934 was moved to the Toy Town Tavern property, now the Winchendon School, where it remained for thirty years and was climbed on by children and widely photographed. It was refurbished for the town's bicentennial parade in 1964 and again for the nation's bicentennial in 1976, after which it fell into ruin. The Winchendon Chamber of Commerce and the Winchendon Historical Society then led an effort, supported by many townspeople, to restore the horse as a symbol of civic pride and historical identity. Sherman Labarge of Fryeburg, Maine, was chosen to create the new horse, a task that took him 18 months. The new horse made its public debut at Winchendon's 1988 Toy Town Fourth of July celebration and now stands in a gazebo built through the Chamber of Commerce's efforts and donated labor and materials, at the junction of two well-traveled roads through Winchendon.

Photo: Devry Becker Jones