Saddle up and ride into the sunset
Both Deere & Velie run saddlery business

A century ago, John Deere was well-known for a different kind of "horsepower" than its green and yellow tractors.

While you probably think of John Deere more for its tractor horsepower of today, the company also put its name on a line of horse tack and equipment such as saddles, harness and collars in the early 1900s.

The John Deere Plow Company of Kansas City handled the line using the advertising slogan, "Up To Date." The chosen logo for the brand was a buck sticking its head through a large letter "D." Numerous pieces of memorabilia over the years sport this popular logo image. Not all are directly connected with the saddle business, but relate to the company and its branches during that time period.

In the late 1800s, wagons and buggies were already big sellers for the branches. So it made sense to some of Deereís management that saddles, harness and collars would also do well.

According to John Deereís Company by Broehl, the idea first came from the Kansas City branch. We believe this instigator to be Stephen H. Velie, John Deereís grandson, who was secretary-treasurer in 1892 and president/general manager by 1904. Apparently, Velie visited with Minneapolis branch manager C.C. Webber about the prospects in the saddlery business.

Yet Webber sent a letter to Charles Deere advising against the addition of the harness business: "We took the position from the start that while this harness business was a good business, and showed a nice profit, and could be run without very much additional effort on the part of management, that it was not a line that would help materially their implement business; that is, the management would have to be largely separate, under a salaried manager, the goods would have to be sold on the road by special salesmen, and we could not see where there was very much in it for the John Deere Plow Co. at Kansas City, excepting as a means of making more money, and their balance sheets down there show that they were quite well off on the money-making proposition as they were."

Webber believed strongly in his philosophy of focusing on farm equipment, namely implements. "We felt that what we wanted them to do was to concentrate their efforts more on their implement business and enlarge that rather than to take on a new line that might divide their attention."

Despite Webberís disapproval, the business must have been started anyway as collectors have found at least a few items of saddlery memorabilia.

Several newspaper articles also prove that the Deere saddlery business soon became the Velie Saddlery Company run by Stephen H. Velie of Kansas City.

In a 1908 history book titled Kansas City, Mo: Its History and Its People, Stephen H. Velie is profiled along with his numerous business ventures and personal history. It says: "He is president of the Velie Saddlery Company, of Kansas City, which he organized five years ago, and which has developed so rapidly that it equals in size the largest harness, collar and saddlery manufactory in the west." It later notes that his one son, Tom A., was secretary and assistant manager of the Velie Saddlery Company.

Apparently, Stephen was an avid fan of equestrian sports, especially polo and hunting. He even owned a 205-acre farm near Blue Springs, Missouri, in Central Jackson County that was called "one of the countryís more impressive horse breeding establishments" in a Kansas City Star story of Oct. 14, 1934, which tells of the farmís sale.

It also mentions that Velie kept as many as 60 brood mares on the property. And that "one of his stallions was a half brother to the incomparable Man Oí War for which Mr. Velie is said to have paid $35,000.

In his obituary story from the Kansas City Journal Post on November 16, 1933, that fact is confirmed and slightly corrected: "In 1929, Mr. Velie paid $36,000 for Blind Play, brother of Man oí War. He placed the 8-year-old racer on his stud farm six miles south of Independence. In developing his farm Mr. Velieís ambition had been to make Jackson county a center for the production of fine racing stock."

The farm sale story adds: "It was on this farm that Mr. Velie trained thoroughbred racing horses for use on polo fields and also bred polo mounts from thoroughbred stock. He is said to have been the first sportsman in this country to use such mounts for polo. With the late Dr. St. Clair Streett, he introduced polo to Kansas City."

That could explain why he orchestrated the take-over of Deereís existing business in December 1906.

Articles in the Moline Daily Dispatch from Dec. 28, 1906 and Jan. 23, 1907, state that the Velie Saddlery business was incorporated for "the manufacture and sale of harness, collars and saddlery and like articles of merchandise and the tanning, manufacturing and trading in leather and products thereof." The capital stock of $200,000 was divided into 2,000 shares of $100 each with officers of Charles Deere as President, Stephen Velie as First Vice President, George Peek as Second VP, Tom Velie as Secretary and W.A. Stevenson as Treasurer.

It states: "The new concern has taken over the harness, saddle and collar business of the John Deere Plow Co. of Kansas City, which has operated for a number of years, and will conduct the business as a separate industry under the name of the Velie Saddlery Co."

According to the articles, the main office will be in Moline with the factory remaining in Kansas City. The primary market for the product was to be in the southwest and the story noted that the company intended to increase the plantís output immediately.

That must have happened within the next year. Because by February 12, 1907, another article from the Daily Dispatch of Moline noted that 500 sets of harness were to be shipped to Siberia and another large order came from Mexico. The news brief quotes: "Thus does the evidence accumulate of the popularity of Velie products in foreign lands."

Since so few Deere or Velie saddlery items have been found here in the States, maybe some of The Green Girlís fans in Siberia or Mexico could send her something they found!

If anyone knows of any saddlery items from either company or other tidbits of history, please let me know so we can continue to piece together this puzzle of the past.