John Deere created new steel plow in Grand Detour

By OTTO DICK

It’s amazing that John Deere moved to Grand Detour close to the same year Oregon was founded.

The 33-year-old blacksmith previously lived in Heacock, Vermont. He manufactured pitch forks and shovels. Fires twice destroyed his blacksmith shop so he decided to change climates.

Two years before he arrived, Grand Detour was founded by Leonard Andrus, also from Vermont.

He left his pregnant wife and four children. This was when there was an upper and lower ferry to cross the river to Grand Detour and 65 years before the bridge was built.

On his trip from Vermont, he traveled on a canal boat to Buffalo and then a packet boat to Chicago. When he arrived at Grand Detour, he constructed a log cabin 16 feet by 24 feet.

In 1838, his wife Demarius Lamb Deere and brother-in-law William Peek, with the Deere’s three daughters and two sons, arrived in Illinois.

One year after he came to Grand Detour he built and successfully demonstrated the first self-polishing steel plow in 1837. The following year he manufactured three plows.

In 1838, he manufactured 10 plows, 1840-40 plows, 1841-45 plows, 1842-199 plows and in 1843-400 plows. In 1844, he teamed up with his neighbor Leonard Andres and built a factory producing more than 1,000 plows.

When the railroad bypassed Grand Detour in favor of Dixon, they moved the factory to Dixon in 1868.

As a demand for these plows increased, he moved his business from Grand Detour and Dixon to Moline in 1848, expanding the manufacturing of farm equipment.

In 1886, John Deere died and his son Charles Deere became president of John Deere Manufacturing. The hawkeye riding cultivator, which relied on horses, was first introduced at the Iowa State Fair in 1886.

Today, John Deere Manufacturing is a worldwide corporation. There are more than 100 factories in more than 30 countries.

So in Ogle County the same year Oregon was founded, John Deere at age 35 moved here and started what is now a huge worldwide corporation.

We are very fortunate to have the John Deere Historic Site at Grand Detour where you can see the first John Deere plow, see a blacksmith shop and tour his home.

• Otto Dick is a retired teacher and has researched Ogle County history for several years.