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DEEEE AND MANSUB COMPANY

This company was organized in 1877 with a capital stock of $25,000 and their first plant was a wooden building located where the John Deere Wagon Company's plant now stands at Moline. It was about the third corn planter factory established in the United States, and is now the largest manufacturer of corn plant ers and disc harrows in the world. The capital stock was first increased to $45,000. In 1883 it was increased to $100,000, in 1892 to $400,000, in 1901 to $1,200,000, and in 1909 to $2,500,000.

New buildings were erected in 1889, in 1890, 1891, 1892, 1895, and in 1905, the plant now occupying a floor space of over 500,000 square feet. Eight hundred men are employed. Other plants which became direct members of the Deere and Company factory group in 1911 were: The Kemp and Burpee Company, Syracuse, N. Y., makers of Success Manure Spreaders; the Syracuse Chilled Plow Company. Syracuse, N. Y., makers of chilled steel plows; the Fort Smith Wagon Company, Fort Smith, Ark., makers of wagons for the South; the Davenport Wagon Company, Davenport, Iowa, makers of steel roller bearing wagons; and the Dain Manufacturing Company, Ottumwa, Iowa, and Welland. Ont., makers of hay tools.

In 1910 Deere & Company established a new branch of their business, known as the harvester department. This was located in rented buildings at East Moline. It proved so successful that more room was soon needed, so in the fall of 1912 work was begun on the erection of a new plant on a site containing forty acres of ground adjoining the Marseilles plant in East Moline.

The new plant was sufficiently completed to be occupied August 1 of the present year (1913), though construction still continues on new foundry buildings, steel storage sheds, etc. The present buildings cover tea acres. They are of reinforced concrete construction, are fireproof and built in groups. The main group consists of five buildings three stories high, 80 feet wide and 200 feet long, which are to be extended to 600 feet as needed and a warehouse four stories high, 120 feet wide and 200 feet long, to be extended later. The foundry group consists so far of a foundry two stories high, 80 feet wide by 340 feet long and a service building (15 feet wide by 120 feet long. All buildings are so constructed as to allow for needed extensions. There is a complete independent power plant for steam heating and other purposes in addition to the electric power which drives all the general machinery and there is complete fire fighting equipment.

There are electric elevators, and there are reading rooms, shower baths, etc., for the employes. There are large lumber yards and lumber sheds. The yards are all paved and have complete switching facilities. In fact this is one of the most modern plants in this section. When in full operation the plant will employ about 800 people. Here are manufactured grain binders, corn binders, mowing machines, and hayracks.

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