John
Deere

Green with Innovation 

John Deere is a household American brand that has been threaded throughout pop culture with its iconic yellow and green. But it all started with a steel plow that would revolutionize modern farming and spark innovation that transformed agriculture.  

Deere was a blacksmith in Vermont, but falling on hard times, followed a business associate to Grand Detour, Illinois where he found trouble finding blacksmith work. He had to adapt, so he looked around and he recognized a need for the thick clay covered prairies of the midwest. Traditional cast-iron plows were no match for the dense soil, so he envisioned building a plow from steel that would be more effective and durable.  

And he did.  

In 1837, Deere developed and manufactured the first commercially successful cast-steel plow. In early 1838, he sold his first plow to a local farmer and by 1841 was producing 75-100 plows a year. After a brief partnership to expand manufacturing of his plows, Deere dissolved the partnership and moved to Moline, Illinois to be closer to the Mississippi River, a transportation hub that would enable him to expand and sell his plows nationally.  

By 1855, Deere's factory sold more than 10,000 plows. It became known as "The Plow that Broke the Plains" and is commemorated as such in a historic place marker in Vermont. Deere was obsessed with quality and demanded only the best were put into his farm equipment, a legacy that still stands in the John Deere brand today. “I will never put my name on a product that does not have in it the best that is in me." 

Deere stepped away from day-to-day operations following the 1857 panic once the company recovered improved from that economic scare. He left his son Charles Deere at the helm of the company and he incorporated it as Deere & Company in 1868.  

After leaving the company, he focused his efforts on civil and political service, serving as President of the National Bank of Moline, Director of the Moline Free Public Library, a trustee of the First Congregational Church, and even Mayor of Moline for two year, but following health complications, he refused to run for a second term.

On May 17, 1886 at the age of 82, Deere died at his home called “Red Cliff” that is known today as, “The John Deere House.” Having left behind a legacy that would transform modern agriculture and one of the most recognizable American Brands in the world...“John Deere Green.”