Lone Ranger Town Models

A lot of people ate Cheerios three times a day back in the 40's because that's how you got the Lone Ranger models on the back of the box. It was a whole town! And you could build it - if only you could eat enough Cherios. Cereal box cardboard was not the best thing for modeling, but it went with the Lone Ranger Radio Show, and what could be "more swell" than that?

You needed to eat 9 boxes to get the whole set. Each box had three different buildings on the back, and you could even order more if you had a dime, a boxtop, an envelope and a stamp.

On this page you will see some of the old and some of the new, and I think you'll agree that paper modeling has come a log way over the years.

Lone Ranger Town

It seemed like every kid in America, that's right, every one, even your sister, was eating Cheerios for every meal of the day. And why? Because of that year's Lone Ranger premium offer on the back of each box.

And what was it? It was the greatest thing you could possibly imagine, a full scale, cardboard model of the "Lone Ranger Western Town!" Each box of delicious Cheerios had three different buildings pictured on the back, with a total of 9 boxes to get the whole set. Or at least that's what you thought at first.

As you quickly learned, there were also four different premium sets that you could get by mail, for only ten cents each and a boxtop! Each of the four sets included an entire section of the town (Southeast, Northwest etc.), made up of 8 to 12 "models" (buildings, bridges, train cars, stagecoach, and so on), eight scenic accessories (which you didn't actually get, but just gaming pieces instead), and a large paper playmat for that section of the town's layout. That brought the total layout to 70 different models to place on your four different layouts!

The gaming pieces were to be used for an elaborate game that General Mills created for the huge gaming board. The game only worked with the four complete sections.

Southwest Section

Nine Different Sets