The word "Tonka" is Dakota-Sioux word, which means "Great" or "Big".
Tonka Corporation began as a small metal manufacturing company located in an old school house in Mound, Minnesota in 1946. Mound Metalcraft, as the company was at first called, specialized in manufacturing tie racks and garden tools. But the company manufactured toy trucks as well, apparently as a sideline, the three founders began exhibiting the toy trucks at the New York Toy Fair as early as 1947. These Tonka brand trucks quickly became its preeminent product, and the company changed its name to Tonka Toys in 1955. The company's Tonka Trucks were made of heavy, automobile-gauge steel and were extremely realistic and durable. Between 1955 and 1960 sales at Tonka tripled, and the company acquired a sterling reputation for its high quality product.
The impact of the Tonka truck concept has been enduring and pervasive, especially the Mighty Dump Truck and associated "Mighty" line of construction equipment models introduced from 1964. The all-metal "Tonka trucks" were sold throughout the world and earned a reputation as being indestructible; although the steel has been increasingly replaced by plastic from the late 1980s onwards.
The company was purchased by Hasbro in 1991.