Saturday, February 17, 2024 | Country Acres • Page 1
Country Acres Saturday, February 17, 2024
PRSRT STD ECR U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT #861 Sauk Rapids, MN 2 Second Ave S Suite 135 Sauk Rapids MN 56379
Focusing on Today’s Rural Environment
Volume 11, Edition 02
Handmade in Minnesota
PHOTO BY TIFFANY KLAPHAKE
Daryl Stangler solders a miniature piece of equipment Jan. 30 at his shop near Rice. Stangler uses tin and brass for all of the metal pieces in his designs.
PHOTO SUBMITTED
A hog barn is displayed to showcase the detailed inside at the Stanglers’ shop near Rice. Daryl and Katy Stangler create a variety of barns, buildings and farm accessories with their business, Daryl Stangler Custom Buildings.
Stanglers make custom farm buildings, toys BY TIFFANY KLAPHAKE STAFF WRITER
RICE — As a child, Daryl Stangler started making his own barns, sheds and accessories to go along with his toy tractors and animals. “I made my first building when I was 10,” Daryl said. “I just started making my own stuff to go with my farm toys.” Today, Stangler is doing
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Publications The newspaper of today is the history of tomorrow.
the same thing as a full-time career with Daryl Stangler Custom Buildings. Daryl started making shed and barns for farm toys for other people in his spare time while working at his parents’ cabinet business. “When I was about 16, I went to my first farm toy show as a vendor with some stuff I built,” Daryl said. “This one guy (Dale Matsen) comes over and buys everything I had on the first
This month in the
day. He is a larger vendor, and he is still my main vender that I work with.” The business quickly grew from a hobby to career. By 2007, Daryl quit his job at the cabinet shop and his part-time job for a neighbor, who had a dairy farm, to pursue the farm toy business. In 2022, Daryl’s wife, Katy, also quit her job to work full time with Daryl. “We have 10 to 12 large vendors that buy from us and go to shows and sell with their farm toy business,” Katy said. “Last October, one vendor ordered
“It is all handmade in Minnesota. That’s really cool.” For metal pieces, such as augers, stanchions and other equipment, the products are made from brass or tin. Wood is used for the buildings and hay bales, and the other various parts and pieces are made from resin.
Stanglers page 2
PHOTO BY TIFFANY KLAPHAKE
A gravity box is showcased Jan. 30 at the Stanglers’ shop near Rice. Daryl and Katy Stangler create numerous pieces of farm implement by hand with their business Daryl Stangler Custom Buildings.
COUNTRY: Watch for the next edition of Country Acres on March 16, 2024
800 buildings, and we had a month and a half to build, paint, get stickered, boxed and send out.” Some of the larger retailers that buy products from the Stanglers are Outback Toys, Matsen Miniture Farm Toys, Hounsell’s Farm Toys and D C Toy Trucks. When Daryl and Katy attend farm shows to showcase their custom farm buildings and accessories, people assume their products are 3-D printed. “We don’t 3-D print anything,” Katy said.
5
Country store is a hidden gem Little Falls
7
More than a youth organization Tiffany Klaphake column
11 Starting from scratch Alexandria 15 Getting the community involved Glenwood
18 20-foot skid Nancy Packard Leasman column 19 Country cooking Avon 21 A little farm Airbnb Randall