How Lego
Started
The Lego Company began with a skilled carpenter named Ole
Clerk Christiansen. He did not have
enough money so he had to dismiss all of his workers. Ole had to find a job quickly before his family
starved. His wife died not long after he
had to dismiss his last workers. Ole had
an idea to make wooden toys out of his left over wood from the carpentry. It was a great success, and Ole began selling
the toys to the city. His son Godfrey
helped him out after school, and they began to make a shop of wooden toys. One day a man came to Ole’s shop and looked
at the toys.
Before the man left, he placed a big order on the toys to
keep for the holidays. Ole and his son
God Frey were really happy and started to get all the toys ready. Since Ole had a lot of work to do, he rehired
all of his workers, but in the middle of the night Ole received a letter saying
the whole seller filed for bankruptcy.
Ole realized that they did not have enough food for Christmas, so he
decided to sell them in the city himself.
The toys, however, did not sell as he expected, and Ole thought the
company needed a name. Ole thought hard
and came up with the name Lego, but what he did not know was that the word Lego
in Latin means “I put together.” On a
stormy night, though, an electric pole broke off and
However, Ole did not give up, but continued the work of
Lego. So he built a new factory and the
product did well in. Ole went to another
factory and saw a new moulding machine that made plastic bricks. Ole bought the machine and took it home, and they
started making little plastic teddy bears and animals. There was something about the plastic brick
that he could not stop thinking of. So
finally they started to use the moulding machine and made plastic bricks to
build houses and all kinds of things.
They had too many products in stock, and they were not able to sell
them. Luckily, God Frey went out and
sold some of them himself and that brought Lego back in business.
On a ship to England, Godfrey listened to a guy who talking
about the Lego Company. He said there
just was not any system. God Frey
thought about that word “system,” and then he realized that instead of having
products already built, the kids could make things out of the Lego bricks
themselves. God Frey wanted the kids’
imagination to grow. Lego became so
popular after, that they sold it to many countries. Kids loved the way to make their own houses
and move around the toys. Though there was one problem. The plastic bricks kept
falling apart. God Frey wanted to find a
way to connect them.
Godfrey found that putting tubs inside the Lego bricks makes
them connect together. A child’s
imagination could create anything in the world over and over again. Although Godfrey had to go through another
fire, that destroyed most of the wooden toys.
Godfrey rebuilt the factory and decided to not continue the wooden toys,
but focus on the Lego bricks. Godfrey
wanted to somehow sell his toys more easily so he decided to build an
airport. He wanted to build a special
room to hold the Lego Company better, but the idea grew and he decided to build
an Amusement Park. The park was going to be filled with Lego and Godfrey called
it Lego Land. The company had a great
success, and they had six hundred thousand guests the very first year. Even though they went through hard times,
they never gave up presenting this wonderful company called Lego.
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