As a small business owner, I’m often curious how other companies began. When you think of a big company that’s been around for a very long time, it’s hard to imagine them as small. But they all were. And often it took a long time for the company to become a success. I thought I might start recording here the early beginnings of various companies.
For no particular reason, I’ve started with John Deere
In 1846, the first slab of cast plow steel ever rolled in the United States was made for John Deere and shipped from Pittsburgh to Moline, Illinois, where it was ready for use in the factory Deere opened there in 1848.
Ten years after he developed his first plow, John Deere was producing 1,000 plows a year. In those early years of his business, Deere laid down several precepts that have been followed faithfully since then by the company he founded. Among them was his insistence on high standards of quality. John Deere vowed: “I will never put my name on a product that does not have in it the best that is in me.”
John?Deere History and Information About The Company at Deere.com