Ant Farm History

The history of the ant farm and Uncle Milton goes back almost 60 years and shows how the simple concept of selling live ants has made the Levine family millions as well as captured the imagination of children all over. See the story at Insect Kits below of Uncle Milton.

Original Uncle Milton Ant FarmThe brainchild of the ant farm belongs to goes way back to 1946.  Milt was an active duty Sergent who built bridges for a living for the USA when we were in Germany.  Now he wasn't an army ant lover yet but the beginning of the ant farm started when he returned from duty.

Milt had a brother in law named Joe Cossman. See Joe Cossman was a marketeer who new how to market and made a living at it.  Joe liked to market items with a twist.  Something a little different.  Joe at a pretty young age marketed the 14 balloons for $1.00 concept.  Now this was not your run of the mill balloons though these were shaped like animals.  What a novel concept. 

Well anyway Joe and Milt got together and created the first mail order company. Along with the balloon idea they came up with 100 army men for a buck and the spud guns that shot potatoes which still sells in varies markets today although not my Uncle Milton Industries.

The Beginning of the ant farm.

So in 1952 Joe and Milt decided to move to the West Coast and set up shop. Orders were coming in left and right for the crazy items these to marketed. Then one day in 1956 at a barbecue Milt came upon the idea of the Ant Farm. .

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The problem was though where could the procure the vast quantity of live ants they needed? Now thats a big problem if you have an ant farm but do not have enough ants to supply your customers with live ants.

Ant Farms for sale

So the supply of ants went up and the demand increased for ant farms as well. It was time to mass produce the ant farms so the habitat could be seen by all.,

Ant Farm Designed

So they contracted an engraver to engrave the groovy green design.