LARK Toys

LARK Toys began as a toymaking workshop, and that is still its beating heart. In an era when nearly every toy is molded plastic stamped out overseas, the makers here shape toys from wood, cutting, turning, and finishing them by hand on site. Visitors can watch the work happen, an increasingly rare chance to see real craft in progress, and the finished pieces, wooden trucks, tops, puzzles, and pull toys, fill the shelves of the shops.

The name LARK comes from the initials of the family who founded it, and the enterprise grew outward from that first workshop into a warren of connected buildings. Along the way it gathered a large collection of vintage and antique toys, a nostalgic museum of childhood that stops many an adult visitor in their tracks. The place has always been about the idea that a good toy is made with care and meant to last.

The carousel is LARK Toys' masterpiece and its signature. Rather than the mass-produced horses of a typical merry-go-round, this one carries a cast of original creatures, each carved from wood by hand over a long stretch of painstaking work. Riders can choose a dragon, a fish, a heron, a rabbit, or one of the other fanciful animals, all sculpted individually so that no two are alike.

Carving a full carousel is the work of years, and the result is closer to folk sculpture than to an amusement ride. It is one of the very few hand-carved carousels of its kind, and the fact that you can actually ride it, rather than just admire it behind a rope, is part of what makes LARK Toys special. Children and adults alike climb aboard, and the ride has become the emblem of the whole place.

Beyond the workshop and carousel, LARK Toys spreads into a maze of themed shops selling handmade toys, classic wooden games, kites, marbles, and the kind of playthings that don't need batteries. There is a bookstore, an ice cream counter, and quiet corners full of the vintage toy collection. It is easy to lose an hour wandering the connected rooms, each with its own character.

Outdoors, a mini golf course winds through the grounds, dotted with oversized carved figures and whimsical touches that carry the toymakers' playful spirit into the open air. Together the carousel, the golf, the workshop, and the shops make LARK Toys a genuine destination in a town most travelers would otherwise pass right through, a reward for turning off the highway into the bluff country.

Kellogg sits in the Driftless Area, the corner of the Upper Midwest that the last glaciers missed, leaving a landscape of steep wooded bluffs, spring-fed valleys, and river towns. The Mississippi River runs close by, and the Great River Road follows it through a string of small communities and overlooks. This is homeland of the Dakota people, whose name for the land, Mni Sota Makoce, gives Minnesota its name, and whose presence along the river reaches back generations.

A visit to LARK Toys pairs naturally with a drive along the river. Wabasha and its National Eagle Center lie just upstream, Lake Pepin widens the Mississippi to the north, and the bluffs put on a show of color every fall. In this setting, a handmade toy shop and its carved carousel feel right at home, part of a slower, older way of traveling and making things.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.