Visit Westerville

Fun Makers

Treats from The Past

By Artist Jackie Jeromin

Mural Location: Roush Hardware | 609 S. State Street                                                                                                                                                                   Located on the Shrock Rd. side of the building

A gumball machine expels colorful gumballs that contain visions of some of the games and toys that Westerville used to also manufacture in the past. A large orange gumball sees a bowling ball striking pins while a red gumball sees a child playing with a Kilgore toy truck from the 1930s-1950s. A green gumball shows a hand arranging Kilgore dollhouse furniture, and in a pink gumball, a boy pushes his GoCycle from the 1910s. The purple and yellow gumballs show the E-Z-fly kite that Kilgore produced in 1929. Although the gumballs inside the machine do not show visions from the past, their presence hints at the fact that the illustrated gumballs are only a fraction of the toys and joys that Westerville has produced in its history.

Jackie Jeromin is an Ohio-based artist who loves variety—playing with color and style from hyper-colorful to minimal palettes, and from realism to surrealism, often with a sense of whimsy. Jackie experiments with a variety of media including oils, acrylics, and digital illustration.

In recent years, she’s expanded into mural work. Jackie’s work has been featured in exhibitions across Ohio, including the Ohio State Fair (where she placed 2nd in the 2025 Live Mural Competition), galleries, and juried shows.

Learn more about Jackie at jackiejeromin.com

For the first 50 years of the twentieth century, Westerville made products that revolutionized games, play, and recreation.

Hance Manufacturing began making GoCycles in 1912: these wooden scooters had special skate attachments enabling them to glide over packed snow and ice and sold more than 200,000 in just a couple years. Hance also made gum ball and peanut vending machines.

Kilgore Manufacturing made dollhouse furniture and cap guns, putting out 25,000 toy pistols and 100,000 caps daily by the 1930s. The company had two separate plants in town. Kilgore also made signal flares and bombs during WWII.

Westerville even contributed to adult fun. Sanders Frye invented an automatic pinsetting machine that addressed the notorious issues of automatic machines of the 1940s. His 1945 and 1946 patents improved the technology, eventually becoming the foundation for bowling machines at AMF Bowling Centers across the country.