Toy Company Suit Update

(NEW LONDON)-- Ralls County authorities report that they’ve been unable to serve a former Louisiana toy company with documents requesting the firm’s assets.    The Mercantile Bank of Louisiana won a settlement last year against Whittle Toy Company of New London and is now asking for the information.    Ralls County authorities reported making multiple attempts to serve Whittle with the request, but that there’s never anyone at the company’s plant just east of the courthouse in New London.    A judge last fall ordered Whittle and owner Mike Whitworth to pay more than one-point-one million in principal and interest on two loans that the bank says were not repaid.    The company started in Whitworth’s garage in suburban Saint Louis almost 20 years ago. It opened a 10-thousand-square-foot operation in a former glove factory in Louisiana in March 2005. Four years later, it found larger quarters at a vacant factory in New London.    The company produced toy trains and puzzles, but has had multiple legal problems in the last two years.