The Beginning of the ant farm.

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So in 1952 Joe and Milt decided to move to the West Coast and set up shop. Orders were coming in left and right for the crazy items these to marketed. Then one day in 1956 at a barbecue Milt came upon the idea of the Ant Farm. .

Watching ants moving back and forth during the Fourth of July family festivities he brainstormed.  HMMMM How could he profit on a creature so abundant but still considered a pest to most folks?  See live ants are pretty prolific throughout the world so why not make money off of them.  Kids love to watch the ants moving about and seeing the social interaction intrigued him as a child so he figured it would capture the imagination of kids throughout the world.

So he asked Joe, “Why don’t we come out with some kind of observation toy so kids can watch ants at home?”

The ant farm was born.  So these two guys got to wok testing the market of the ant habitat.  The marketing venue was the Los Angeles Times paper.  They were offering a very generic ant farm not like we are used to today, a plastic box, a bag of sand and a vial of live ants. BOOM, the orders for ant farms and live ants came flying in.

This venture took of with amazing speed and they were not prepared.