The Performo Toy Company was established in 1925 by Torrence Leroy Dietz, in Middletown, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. They manufactured wooden toys in a building on North Spring Street. His business expanded rapidly, soon recruiting over 25 employees, and still having trouble filling demands for their popular toys. The corporation documents confirm the president of the toy company was Torrence Dietz and that Rene Grove was the chief designer and one of five partners. The company was capitalize with an initial stock offering of twenty-five thousand dollars. The original partners were Torrence Dietz, president (and salesperson), O.H. Watts, manager and treasurer, Clifford Funk, initially the secretary, and Rene Grove, principal artist and designer, and Elias Klahr, investor. (source financial records) The company had a catalog of around 40 different toys, all of them distributed by the George Borgfeldt Company, including its most popular doll, a black and white mouse named Micky (US Patent #D70,840, received on August 17, 1926). Rene Grove's younger brother, Larry Grove worked at the factory. After the mouse was created, Performo had a "Name the Mouse" contest. Larry submitted the name Micky and won the contest. Mickey Mouse vs. Micky Mouse debate Mickey Mouse is one of the most loved cartoon characters in the history of animation industry. The similarities between both mice have led to speculation that Walt Disney stole his most successful idea from the Performo Toy Company. The wooden mouse was very popular in New York City (where Performo's distributor was located) in 1928. Coincidentally, at about the same time, Disney thought of the idea for his animation studio's new character and began drafting cartoons, which then aired as shorts, padding the time between one film and the next, and were extremely popular. Other shorts included newsreels, which showed film of events from around the world, much as does a nightly news broadcast in the heyday of television broadcasting. There is a well known legend in Middletown about how Performo Toy Company sued The Walt Disney Company, which included some coverage in the local paper. A conspiracy theory might have arisen from this story, however, History Detectives, a television program on PBS, conducted an extensive investigation on the topic. The historians and researchers of the PBS program conducted a nationwide search, finding that there are no records nor evidence of any legal action between the two parties. Inquiries to Disney historians and archivists resulted