(cheery music) (cheery music continues) - [Narrator] "Illinois Stories" is brought to you by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

(cheery music concludes) - Hello, welcome to "Illinois Stories".

I'm Mark McDonald in Quincy at the public library, where, interestingly enough, we have icons of a period of Quincy's history that many of you may not be aware of.

Quincy was the headquarters of a company that made Nativity scenes, toy soldiers, plastic figurines, that were known all around the country.

And in fact, I have a copy of a book here by Ken Glennon, who's our guest, and it's called the "Dime Store Dynasty of J. H. Miller".

J. H. Miller is the mastermind behind this company that we're gonna talk about, the J.H.

Miller company.

The building's still there.

And hundreds of people from the Quincy area were employed there over a period of almost 20 years.

And Ken, you got so interested in Tike Miller.

His nickname was "Tike".

- [Ken] Yes.

- You got so interested in him that you just had to write a book.

And this is so detailed.

And I must say, there's a lot of minutia in here that only a real fanatic would really, really want to want to delve into.

It's really very interesting.

- Thank you, Mark.

- How did you get so hooked on this?

- Well, it started when I was a boy.

You could buy toy soldiers at that time for 19 cents a piece.

They were very detailed compared to the lead soldiers that historically, were all that boys had to play with up until that time.

His figurines stood like five inches tall.

Scale models of soldiers.

Anyway, I collected those.

- [Mark] Yeah, and we're gonna see your collection, too, because you brought, well, we're gonna see a lot of things, but we will definitely take a look at those toy soldiers.

- Wonderful, yeah.

- But what got him started was the Nativity scenes, right?

- That's how he got started, yes.

- Well, you've laid out a number of these, and these kind of go by period, don't they?

- They do.

- [Mark] Show us the Evanston Series.

- [Ken] It started in Evanston, Illinois, in his basement, is what it was.

Tike was a nonconformist.

There's a background of how he met his wife.

They were in school and all of that.

And it ended up where he went to work at the World's Fair.

And he was there a short period of time, realized he had to do his own thing.

The family realized that he could start this business.

His brother attended, Max, attended the Chicago Art Institute.

And they knew that if you had a Nativity set, and one piece broke you couldn't go the dime store and buy a replacement.

You had to buy a whole set.

- A whole set, sure.

- So that was the inspiration.

- He didn't stay in Evanston forever, of course.

Now this is Evanston Series II.

- Yes.

- And this is different.

Of course they're smaller.

- Yes.

- [Mark] They look more detailed, too.

Or do they have more detail?

- [Ken] Yes, that's very true, Mark.

What happens initially when people get into something, they make it too big, they make it too complicated, and they economize as they go on.

I found that out about these sculptures having studied the lineage of them.

So he came out with a couple of different series in Evanston and then the production got to the point where he needed to get a factory.

So he got a small factory in Chicago.

And once again, that Chicago factory just grew and grew, and then they needed a purpose-built, or a purpose-facility factory.

And the search was on.

- Uh-huh, the search was on, and he picked Quincy, didn't he?

- He did.

- Why?

- His father was the regional manager for Kresge's Dime Store.

And Kresge is the parent of Kmart, and they were huge.

And so he was a Chicago regional manager, he had a lot of connections.

They realized that the Chicago market, industrially, was more expensive.

- Sure.

- A lot of things led them to think a rural situation would be better.

And he had a contact, Roy Miller his father, had a contact in Quincy.

So Tike Miller and his wife Shirley jumped on a Indian motorcycle on a beautiful autumn day, and came down to look at Quincy.

They also looked at St. Louis, and they decided on Quincy.

- Well, we're lucky they did.

And they must have really liked it.

Well, it is rural, it's on the river, so transportation was a good, was a benefit for them, wasn't it?

- [Ken] It was, indeed.

- [Mark] And these are some of the some of the products that were made here.

And you say, early Hampshire, this is the Hampshire Street plant in Quincy.

That's still there, isn't it?

- [Ken] It is.

- [Mark] Where these were made.

- [Ken] It was a four-story building.

It's now a two-story building due to the history of fires in Quincy.

- [Mark] Oh, sure.

- [Ken] Yes, the building is still there.

- [Mark] And now these figurines are different from the Chicago Series in what way?

- [Ken] In a significant way.

At this factory, he designed a conveyor belt.

So the figurine would come out of its rubber mold, and it would have a paper tab that extended about this high.

That tab was put on a clip.

And hundreds of these were put on this conveyor, hanging by their clips, - Hanging upside-down.

- And they would travel along and go into a basic paint color and be dipped.

And by the time they got to the end of that conveyor line, they would be taken off.

This would be snipped, and they would have the base color for the figurine.

- Okay.

- That way it would then go on the conveyor line and all that the girls had to do to finish it was apply these other colors.

- But they did hand-paint them.

- Yep.

- After the base was on, but they hand-painted them after that.

- These were done with airbrush.

- [Mark] Oh, okay.

- [Ken] But the facial details were done by Finish.

They called them "Finish Girls".

- [Mark] Okay.

- [Ken] They would do the eyes by hand with the brush, the lips, beards, et cetera.

- It's remarkable when you look.

Look at the detail on this king.

That's really something.

And these are collectors' items, aren't they?

These are still very desirable.

- Everything is, yes.

And a lot of these are in homes across America, yet today, handed down from generation to generation.

- Not surprised.

And I imagine they get very carefully wrapped and stored every Christmas.

And it's a big night when you get out the Christmas tree- - [Ken] Sure.

- and get these out again.

Absolutely.

Okay, next, we're gonna talk about the industry itself, the industry here in Quincy, because there were two plants.

- Yes.

- Hundreds of people were employed.

- Yes, he had 400 people at the peak.

- Wow.

- He started out at the Hampshire Street, 225 Hampshire Street facility, and knew he had to get bigger.

So he bought area on the York Street plant and in doing so, he came up with a whole new painting system, wherein the clips were done with, and you can tell that transition by the absence of the clip mark on the figurines from that era.

Because what they did then, they were put on a conveyor and they all traveled through a spray booth.

So the base color was applied in that manner.

Then they continued down the line with the finished detail as they did previously.

- [Mark] Well, Ken, one thing about Tike Miller, he was never short of ideas, was he?

- [Ken] Oh, that's true.

- [Mark] In fact, he probably had too many, because he would kind of flip from one thing to another.

- [Ken] Mark, I don't know how this guy slept.

- [Mark] (chuckles) Well, this is interesting, 'cause we call this a diorama, and he was producing this at the Quincy plant.

And I imagine that there were people that never saw anything like this for a Christmas decoration.

- [Ken] That's true.

They, you know, now this is the 1940s.

So something like this would be very, very impressive in that era.

I mean, you know, there's no TV of any prominence.

So yeah, that was probably, and what he did here, he wanted to diversify from the straight Nativity into other product lines.

- Sure, sure.

A secular line.

What the heck, you know?

- Yeah.

- Get more customers.

- Yeah.

- Another interesting thing, he had always had ideas.

He wanted to be able to produce Easter eggs that would come apart and that you could put items in, maybe little chicks, or maybe coins, or maybe jelly beans, or whatever.

And we still see these around today.

You see 'em hanging from people's trees out in their yard- - [Ken] That's true.

- [Mark] and people go Easter egg hunting, they use these for the kids.

But he thought of it way back in the '40s, didn't he?

- [Ken] He did, indeed.

- [Mark] (laughs) And he had these made in Peoria.

- [Ken] By the Peoria Plastic Company.

He contracted with them to make 'em.

- [Mark] Yeah.

- [Ken] And they were so popular, that Peoria Plastic contacted him and said, "Tike, we're gonna have to invest in more machines.

Is that okay?"

He said, "Go with it."

And they saturated the market.

- Yeah, yeah.

And they're still being made.

I don't know if they're still being made in Peoria- - They're offshore, now.

- Oh, like everything, right?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, like everything.

Okay, we were talking about the toy soldiers, and you have a particular, personal interest in this because you started as a kid- - Yes.

- collecting toy soldiers, and they were Miller toy soldiers.

- Yes.

- Can you pick out the first one that remember getting?

- I believe it was this guy, a flag-bearer.

He's planting a flag, and everyone is of the assumption that it is Iwo Jima.

- Uh-huh, okay.

- That was the first piece.

They were 19 cents a piece then, Mark.

- 19 Cents, my goodness.

Well, they're collectors' items.

They're worth- - Oh, today.

- worth a lot, aren't they?

- Oh yes, indeed.

- And you've got the whole militia here.

Pick up the General for us, will you?

Because he's an exact replica, isn't he?

- Yes, he is.

- Who are we looking at, here?

- General Douglas MacArthur, with his signature sunglasses.

- [Mark] Isn't that something, yeah.

- [Ken] His corn cob pipe and his signature stature.

- [Mark] What are these made out of?

- [Ken] These are made of plaster of Paris.

- Okay, so that's actually kind of old-world, isn't it?

Because aren't we talking now plastic is really what figurines are made of now, right?

- [Ken] That's true.

- [Mark] And when did that come along?

- [Ken] Well, just about this time in history, 1950 and 1951 is when he made these products.

- [Mark] Well, you know, these are really heavy.

And I imagine, that's of course they were lead before this, but so they were heavier than this.

But these are lighter than what kids were used to.

But they're still quite a bit to haul around.

- [Ken] Yes, yes they are.

- [Mark] Were they sturdy?

- [Ken] Well, it depends on how much war you put 'em through.

- [Mark] (chuckles) - [Ken] Yeah, you get a B.B.

gun, you're gonna annihilate 'em.

[Mark] Oh, my goodness.

- [Ken] But if you're, if you're careful with them, they're still here today.

- [Mark] Uh-oh, I think I'd better not pick that up.

I'm gonna mess somethin' up.

'Cause that nurse is part of the part of the deal, isn't it?

- [Ken] Yes.

- Yes, and that's really intricate right there.

- [Ken] There's a secret to these in that we found out, collectors found out through the years, that faces on the figurines were actually characters from the movies.

This particular one has Frank Sinatra's face.

- [Mark] No kidding.

- [Ken] This one is very distinctive in that, this is kind of the guy who started it all: Robert Mitchum.

- [Mark] It looks like Mitchum!

- [Ken] It is!

A collector sent this to Robert Mitchum's son and asked him to put his signature on it, and he did.

He sent it back to him, signed by Robert Mitchum.

- Now, these are made all made in Quincy.

- Yes.

- And like you say, during this period, right before plastics takes over, this is really the heyday for Miller, isn't it?

- That was the zenith, yeah.

- From after, during and after the War and through the '50s.

- Yeah, through the '50s they thrived.

Yes, they did.

- Let's go next to the plastic area, because I think that's, for the industry anyway, I'm gonna follow you, as the industry goes anyway, that's sort of where this was going, right?

- It was.

And his first venture in plastic was the Nativity pieces.

- [Mark] Okay.

- [Ken] He started with that.

And he made the same Nativity pieces, only in plastic.

And then he graduated to the new generation- - [Mark] Oh, these are outstanding!

- [Ken] which were the dinosaurs.

And his brother Max had an association with the Natural History Museum in Chicago and the artwork of an artist, I believe his name was Knight.

And they scaled these figurines off of that.

- [Mark] Wow.

- [Ken] And Ruth Dudley was the sculptor credited with- - [Mark] And this is- - [Ken] doing the dinosaurs.

- [Mark] she was a Quincyan, I assume, right?

- [Ken] Yes.

- [Mark] She lived in Quincy.

And there she is, doing the sculpt.

So she's actually sculpting a mold, I guess.

Is that what she's doing?

- [Ken] That's right.

She's doing a mold of the Brontosaurus right here.

- [Mark] Wow, that's exquisite.

Those are really good.

- And they're very collectible.

- Yeah.

Boys, particularly, loved, well, they still do, love dinosaurs!

- They do.

- I did, I don't know why, but I did.

- Exactly.

- Yeah.

Okay, so this was another, this is like the late '40s and '50s, is that what we're talking about here?

- No, now, we're in the '50s.

- Okay, in the '50s.

Okay, take us to the next.

- The next generation- - Big step.

- of course we're all in plastic, now, was what they called the "Jungle Series".

And at the time, Marlon Perkins had a TV show, I think it was called "Wild America" or something like that.

From Mutual of Omaha.

It was on TV all the time.

- [Mark] "Wild Kingdom".

- [Ken] "Wild Kingdom", that's it!

That's it.

- [Mark] I remember it.

- [Ken] And that was an inspiration for Tike.

And he came out with this series.

Even to the, you know, the scale is a little jungle hut.

And for collectors today, they're just so, so desirable.

And he started with, he made him in three sizes: small, medium, and large.

- [Mark] Mm-hm, mm-hm, wow.

Okay, and then we got all involved in outer space creatures, huh?

On aliens, and God knows whatever you could dream of, huh?

- [Ken] Exactly, Earth Invaders.

- [Mark] Earth Invaders.

- [Ken] It was in the, once again, it's in the mid-'50s, and there was a national craze about flying saucers.

They were in the newspapers and sightings every day.

Along the way, the record came out, "The Flying Purple People Eater".

- [Mark] (chuckles) And there's a little vinyl right there.

- [Ken] Right there.

That's the record, "The Purple People Eater".

And that was the very first, that was the genesis, Mark, for this entire series of Earth Invaders.

It was "The Purple People Eater".

- [Mark] And again, these were made here in Quincy- - [Ken] Yes.

- [Mark] at the plant.

I love this one.

- [Ken] Yes.

- [Mark] I love this one.

Look at that.

Oh, wow.

I wonder if the parents liked this as much as they liked, you know, the other ones.

I don't know if they, it's kind of creepy.

- Some of, yes, and some of these today, this one is so rare, that I just have this model of it.

They're worth like $1,800.

- [Mark] Really?

- [Ken] If you can find one.

- Oh, my goodness.

And you couldn't find one, right?

- [Ken] No, I couldn't.

- [Mark] Or you couldn't afford one, one or the other.

- Yeah, well, probably both.

- (chortles) Okay, okay.

Now what's going on here?

- Well, I think first we should mention this: this was the end of the Quincy program.

- [Mark] Okay.

- [Ken] And Tike took that technology for those machines and made it into a commercial machine, in that anyone could make a model.

He moved to California, he and his partner, Millard Helms- - Let's show Millard, here.

- [Ken] made the new machine, put it together, and went to Disney World and said, "Walt, we have an idea."

- [Mark] Wow.

- And they bought it.

- Disney bought it?

- Disney bought it.

- Wow.

- And these are figurines that were made on that machine.

- [Mark] And that machine was called, was that the Coin- - [Ken] "Coin-O-Matic".

- [Mark] Coin-matic, okay.

And so you would put, you'd put your coin in and you'd choose which, what you wanted, and it would just make it on demand.

- Well, it would make whatever mold was there at the moment.

They would have to change the mold- - I see.

- and they periodically did it.

- One at a time, huh?

- Right.

You get Jiminy Cricket today, and you get Donald Duck the next day, or whatever they had.

- Oh, wow.

So he's not, his plant is not operating anymore.

It's done in Quincy, his plant- - In Quincy- - are closed.

- Yeah, it's gone.

- He's off, and he's probably making more money doing, designing and selling patents than anything else.

- Yes, and it's a lot less complex.

That was followed by spinoffs.

After this enterprise, his molding process was sold to A.R.A.

Company that had all the molding machines across America.

He was at a show, Tike was at a show, a trade show with his machine, and A.R.A.

had to have it.

So he came into his next millions of dollars with that.

- [Mark] Wow.

- [Ken] And these are A.R.A.

products.

- [Mark] And these are plastic again?

- [Ken] No, these are plaster.

And once again, he inspired these, these are made by individuals today with his machine.

So he inspired this new generation of creation.

This is in this same genre as the original Miller soldiers, but they are figurines that Tike didn't make.

For example, General Patton and General Montgomery.

These were not made by Tike, and the thought was, by yours truly, that had Tike continued, what would he have made?

And that's the genesis for this series.

They're called "21st Century J.H.

Miller".

- Ken, not only did Tike choose Quincy for their base of operations for their factory, they also wanted to live in the area.

- Yes.

- And they looked around and I'm assuming that they looked far and wide because they found their dream home and their dream piece of property- - Yes.

- over on the Missouri side of the river.

- They did.

They lived in Quincy for a while and he just needed more.

More house, more property, yes.

And they found it over there.

- Well, and he didn't mind, okay, his wife, Shirley- - Right.

- she was also a hard worker.

They didn't mind spending their money, did they?

- No, not at all.

- When they bought that, was it La Grange, Missouri?

- It's in La Grange, yes.

- Yes, tell me about that.

It was more like a compound than a home.

- Well, it originally was a Scout camp.

And before that, it had natural springs, and it was a spa for many years.

So at the time they came along in 1947, things are doing good, there's money in the bank.

They want a permanent residence.

This had 10 acres.

It had everything that they wanted, but it was dilapidated.

- [Mark] Oh!

- So they rebuilt on the site.

- Okay, so it wasn't like they just bought an expensive place and moved in.

They had work to do.

- They did.

- And they didn't mind working, either, did they?

- They engaged it, because it was gonna be their way, and that's how these folks were.

- What do you know about Tike and his family?

He came from, his father was successful.

He was big exec with Kresge, like you said.

It helped Tike get started.

But was he an exceptional member of his own family?

Is his family, was he sort of exceptional?

- Well, every one of them was.

His siblings, to the person, was.

But we could talk all day on that.

But yes, Tike was very, very, very driven, very focused, and just dynamic.

He needed someone to hold him back a little bit, he was so dynamic.

And that's what Shirley did.

And his business manager did.

- Shirley and he were sort of like love at first sight, weren't they?

- Oh, yeah.

- I think they were together all through high school.

And then- - [Ken] It started in college.

- [Mark] oh, it started in college.

- [Ken] Yes.

- [Mark] Okay.

- [Ken] She actually dated his brother, and they went on a double-date.

And the conversation was between her and Tike, and the other couples are just kind of cut out.

- (snickers) They knew right off the bat.

- Yes.

- I think they even eloped, didn't they?

- Well, they did, yeah.

They were in college together, Cornell College in Iowa.

And they were nonconformist, and Tike was sneaking into her facility and so forth and so on, which was, anyway, they ended up where they were asked to leave, and they eloped on a Thanksgiving holiday, so no one would know in the family.

And she went on to a different college, and he went on to work at the World's Fair.

- [Mark] In Chicago.

- [Ken] In New York city.

- [Mark] Oh, in New York City?

- [Ken] Yes.

- [Mark] Oh, okay.

- [Ken] This is 1939.

- All right, well, he must have learned something there, because he certainly learned how to, take whatever that was and succeed with it.

- Yes, indeed he did.

And he caught on quick.

- Now he also, he and Shirley had a family.

- They did.

- Tell us about them a little bit.

- They were all driven to be performers.

These are awards that the kids won in athletics.

Jacques was a tennis player.

So was Gay, and Todd was a swimmer.

And each of their respective fields, they were up to a national level, almost, in achievements for sports.

And they were driven by this man right here, Tike Miller.

- [Mark] As a matter of fact, he was a very good wrestler in college, wasn't he?

- He was.

- And dreamed of wrestling in the Olympics.

- He was.

He was aspiring to go into the 1940 Olympics, and we know what happened then.

World War II came along.

- Oh, okay.

- That was the end of that.

And he even followed up on the Olympics later in life and got involved with it, making a trophy for a special class of competition in the Olympics.

- I'm looking at your collection, here.

And I know I've seen some of this collection before.

- Yes.

- Have you loaned this to a local museum?

- Yes, it's been in two museums.

Both museums in Quincy have displayed these items.

And they were at the Quincy Museum.

- Right, that's where I saw them, the Quincy Museum.

- And the Adams County Historical Society Museum.

And the Quincy Museum had a bigger display and a bigger facility, but yes, they they've all been here.

- Do you consider yourself a collector, or do you consider yourself a historian on this?

- I started out as a collector and I guess I still am kinda, little bit, but I need to find a permanent residency for these, and a museum, you know, this is Illinois history.

It's rich Illinois history.

- [Mark] Yeah, it is.

- Tike and all the people that worked for him are all from Illinois, and find a permanent residency in a museum, in Illinois.

- Yeah, yeah.

It would be very nice if we could find one of these old buildings in downtown Quincy that needs a tenant.

- Oh, yeah.

- And have some space there for this- - Absolutely.

- because it really is, it's a piece of Quincy history.

People that were aware of the Miller Company, but they probably didn't know that they were a preeminent producer of these kinds of things for 15 or 20 years.

- That's so true Mark, because, you know, I say that he's been hidden in the attic of time, and it's time for him to come out.

- [Mark] (chuckles) Okay, well, you're doing your best.

- [Ken] I do.

- [Mark] And actually with your book and with all that we're doing, right now, I tell you, I wanna take a look at that big black cat that we just scanned by there, because this stands out as a piece of art, more than a piece of hobby to me.

- [Ken] Well, it is both.

About the time television finally came to most all of the homes in America, home-keepers had a lot of freedom they didn't have before because they had automatic washing machines, and all sorts of revolution was going on, you know?

Disposable cash.

If you got a new TV, across America, you had to have a black leopard on your television, on top of your television or on your coffee table.

- I missed that, somehow.

- It was a fad, a national fad, and they were made out of ceramic by other industries.

And Tike Miller said, "Whoa, I want in on this."

So he made his plaster of Paris versions, three of them, three different- - And that's plaster of Paris.

- [Ken] that's plaster of Paris.

- [Mark] Wow, that is sleek.

- [Ken] And they sold by the millions.

It's incredible!

- [Mark] And that was produced here in Quincy?

- [Ken] Yes.

- [Mark] It is beautiful.

Were the design features of that very similar to other companies, or did Tike have his own very individual design?

- [Ken] That's a good question in that, yes, it's a takeoff on the others.

Very similar, you know, but it was this pose and all of that.

- Well, Ken, this has been an eye opener.

Not just for me, for our audience, I'm sure, because the J.H.

Miller Company doesn't ring a lot of bells for a lot of people, but it will from now on.

- Great, Mark.

- Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

- I also want to thank not only Ken Glennon, but also the Quincy Public Library for making space for us here today.

And remind you that you can certainly learn more about the J.H.

Miller Company through Ken's book.

With another "Illinois Story" in Quincy, I'm Mark McDonald.

Thanks for watching.

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