Fleet Farm Supply of Albert Lea isn’t just a toy store for big boys who come in looking for parts for their farm equipment it also doubles as a toy store for the little ones.

“The whole store is a toy store,” said owners Steve and Kathy Nelson.

The store has been in Steve’s family since 1956 and the Nelsons have kept up the tradition of having toys in the store. It was his mother who liked having the toys. The store used to wrap the toys it sold, but with already overflowing shelves they don’t have the room to do it.

It’s interesting how the classic toys these days can be hard to find at the discount retail stores, but at Fleet Farm grown-up shoppers can find Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, tops and other favorites from their youth.

The Nelsons attend buyer shows three times a year where they find the more traditional toys that most stores no longer carry. They make sure to have things like pedal tractors, stick horses, wagons and many other collectibles.

“We don’t stock just the top-10 toys,” Kathy said.

The Nelsons aren’t opposed to newer toys, but they do like to offer things that are educational and are not merely electronic or video game toys.

A top-seller is the Ertl die-cast models, specifically the John Deere items. Kathy Nelson explained that Schleich collectible animals are also popular.

“People who are into the animals know exactly what they have and what they still need to get before they are gone,” she said.

Besides all the traditional toys they offer, they have just about every Monopoly game you can think of. To name just a few: Farm-opoly, Bible-opoly, American Chopper Monopoly, Grillin-opoly and Mayberry-opoly from the well-known “Andy Griffith Show.”

Something special about Fleet Farm Supply is that, “those parents who are coming in getting toys for their kids remember coming in with their moms and dads,” Steve said.