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Factories from one forge
John Deere manufactured from 11 large plants by 1937
From his humble beginnings in a small blacksmith shop,
John Deere grew his business to include 11 large factories in North America
by the Company’s centennial celebration in 1937.
[We’ll again quote from the special coverage given Deere
in honor of its 100th anniversary by Implement & Tractor
magazine from January 9, 1937.]
Deere’s development
"The development of Deere & Co. from a country blacksmith
shop into an $80 million corporation is one of the epochs of farm machinery
history. It has had few parallels in any industry. As an institution its
greatest growth has come since the death of John Deere in 1886, but such
acceleration would have been impossible except for the solid foundation
built by the founder."
 Deere & Co. incorporated in 1868 with a capital of
$500,000. John Deere himself was president, and his son, Charles H. Deere,
was secretary and general manager. By the time Charles Deere died in 1907,
Deere & Co. was capitalized to $6 million and had a cash surplus of nearly
one-half that amount. It also had a controlling interest in a few other
companies, and by 1910, bought out six non-competing manufacturing companies
to add to its line.
As of its centennial celebration in 1937, ten U.S.
factories and one Canadian plant produce the famous line of agricultural
equipment bearing John Deere’s name.
Let's look at them:
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John Deere Plow Works
Moline, Illinois
The original factory built in 1847 in Moline,
when it just was a six-forge plow plant, is the John
Deere Plow Works.
Today it specializes in
steel moldboard and disk plows, and also builds cultivators, spike-tooth
harrows, listers, disk tillers and other integral working equipment.
In fact, it’s the largest plow factory in the world,
where a complete implement is made every working minute in the year.
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Deere & Mansur Works
Moline, Illinois
Originally established in 1877, the first factory
consisted of one small 50-foot by 100-foot two-story building that was
devoted to corn planter production.
 As the factory grew in size and
capacity, it built all types of corn and cotton planters, plus fertilizer
and pea attachments, disk harrows, endgate seeders, disk cultivators and
stalk cutters.
It is considered the largest and best equipped corn
planter factory in the world…home to the famous No. 999 John Deere planter.
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John Deere Wagon Works
Moline, Illinois
First built in 1854, the small shop grew to a factory
with floor space of half a million square feet, approximately 14 acres, and
a capacity of more than 30,000 wagons a year (the largest in the world).
The plant produces farm, mountain and one-horse wagons,
as well as trucks, trailers and teaming gears.
 The
large storage yard holds millions of feet of oak, hickory and other lumber
during the curing process.
Other
products from this factory include beet and bean tools, rotary hoes,
stalk cutters, rod weeders, vetch planters and fertilizer distributors. Later,
an addition was built to manufacture the Model L one-plow tractor.
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Union Malleable Iron Co.
East Moline, Illinois
It is essential to ensure the quality and consistency of its
malleable castings.
Therefore, Deere owns and operates this factory for specializing in
such high-grade parts as malleable iron castings, clevises, specialty
castings and chains for products of other Deere factories.
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John Deere Tractor Co.
Waterloo, Iowa
From John Froelich’s first gasoline-burning traction
engine to the Waterloo Gasoline Traction Engine Co. in 1893, this factory
produced the Waterloo Boy tractor until Deere purchased it in March 1918.
Since then, this factory has produced John Deere
tractors, including standard-tread, adjustable-tread, orchard and
industrial-type models.
The plant also manufactures portable and stationary
engines. It has a larger tractor output than any other single factory and is
the largest of any Deere factory.
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Syracuse Chilled Plow Co.
Syracuse, New York
This plant has its roots from Thomas Wiard’s first
production of special plows built for the light gravelly soils in the East.
After developing the system of hardening cast iron into a
"chilled" plow, the family eventually moved the plant to Syracuse and
officially organized in 1876. Deere acquired the business to complement
Deere’s steel plow. A full line of chilled plows is available, including
spring-tooth harrows, quack-grass harrows, potato machinery, and grape and
berry hoes.
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Van Brunt Manufacturing Co.
Horicon, Wisconsin
The Van Brunt brothers of Wisconsin first built grain
drills back in 1860.
A special metering device and a way to cover the seed to
keep it from the carrier pigeons helped separate the Van Brunt design from
the competition. As the company gained market share, John Deere took over
the business and began to build its own brand of drills from the Horicon
factory. Also produced are lime and fertilizer distributors, stiff- and
spring-tooth field and orchard cultivators.
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John Deere Spreader Works
East Moline, Illinois
This factory is actually the combination of two other
companies.
In 1910, the Kemp & Burpee Mfg. Co. of Syracuse, NY from 1881 was
merged with the Marseilles Works of East Moline from 1859.
From the Kemp & Burpee line, the plant builds manure spreaders, and from the Marseilles Co.,
it produces corn shellers and grain elevators.
The plant also builds cotton harvesters, hammer mills and
tractor tire pumps.
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Dain Manufacturing Co.
Ottumwa, Iowa
From its roots in Carrollton, Missouri, this plant came
from the idea of Joseph Dain, who built a sweep rake and stacker for hay.
Now
a larger factory in Ottumwa is the location for production of John Deere-Dain
hay loaders, side delivery rakes, sweep rakes, hay stackers and hay presses.
The location also produces Kafir headers, handy farm mixers and pump jacks.
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John Deere Harvester Works
East Moline, Illinois
After acquiring several separate companies in 1910, Deere
decided to develop its own line of grain harvesters.
ŬIn 1912, Deere built a 35-acre factory dedicated to
manufacturing harvesting equipment like grain binders, rice binders, corn
binders, corn pickers, combines, threshers, mowers, self-dump rakes, field
ensilage cutters, and mower knife grinders.
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John Deere Plow Co., Ltd
Welland, Ontario, Canada
The Dain line actually expanded to this location back in
1908 to better service the Canadian market and export trade. When Deere
bought Dain of Ottumwa, it also inherited the Welland plant, which builds
implements for Canada farmers.
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Note: The Green Girl is taking a 2-week hiatus to attend a week
of memorabilia seminars and conferences in Moline, March 3 to 10. Be sure to
join her for all the fun, get an autographed copy of her JOHN DEERE
COLLECTIBLES book, and see some of the items in her personal collection.
She’ll be giving several presentations during the week too so don’t miss
your chance to meet her!
We’ll resume GG columns on March 18th with a
look at Deere’s branch houses at the time of the centennial in 1937.
NOTE: Unless otherwise stated, all quoted sections come
from an article in Implement & Tractor magazine, January 9, 1937.
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