By Norma Dittman
Murray County News staff writer
Curt Mork, who is known as the Lego Guy, was at Slayton Public Library on Thursday afternoon to encourage others with a passion for Legos to “use your imagination”. He was there for the library’s summer reading program entitled “Reading by Design.”
Mork, who has been a Lego collector for ten years, told his audience that he had visited the Lego factory in Denmark two months ago. He shared the interesting history of how Legos came to be, stating “Over 100 years ago, Ole Kirk Christiansen was a carpenter who would construct houses and build furniture. As the wood shop was struggling, one of his children suggested that he make wooden toys. He made airplanes, cars, trucks out of wood and then began making toys out of wood like cars, spinning tops. They didn’t have plastic then. It hadn’t even been invented. Then some scientist created plastic and Christensen started making mostly items like baby rattles. Christiansen and his son decided that there was a need for a toy that boys and girls could play with over and over again. After ten years of trying, they came up with a building block that snapped together. These blocks came out in 1958, so next year, Legos will be 60 years old.”
The Lego Guy explained that Lego sets were manufactured for twenty years before adding Lego people to their sets.
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