DEERE CREDIT, INC.
JOHNSTON, IA

When you open a PowerPlan Account, you’ll get instant purchasing power. Because this commercial line of credit gives contractors and loggers a simple way to help manage parts, service, attachment, and rental expenses while boosting cash flow. Here’s why: We work every day to uphold our founder’s core values. Integrity, quality, commitment, and innovation are more than ideals we work toward. They are values we live and breathe – values found in every product, service, and opportunity we offer. The quality of a company is expressed through the quality of its leadership. For more than 180 years, John Deere has benefitted by strong, decisive leaders at its helm, dedicated to the core principles of integrity, quality, commitment, and innovation. For those who cultivate and harvest the land. For those who transform and enrich the land. For those who build upon the land. John Deere is committed to your success. Because of our past, our passion, and our purpose for helping you become more profitable and productive, John Deere is uniquely positioned to be the equipment supplier of choice. Since our founding in 1837, John Deere has delivered products and services to support those linked to the land. Read about our past, what we learn from it, and how we use it to improve every day. After ten years in Grand Detour, John Deere forms a new partnership and moves to Moline, situated on the Mississippi River with water power and transportation options. His new state-of-the-art plow factory doubles production the next year. John Deere buys out his partners after a disagreement over product quality. When confronted by his partner that customers would buy whatever they make, Deere responded “They haven’t got to take what we make and somebody else will beat us and we will lose our trade.” The business totters during a nationwide financial panic. Maneuverings to avoid bankruptcy shuffle ownership and managerial arrangements. John Deere remains president, but managerial power passes to 21-year-old Charles Deere. He will run the company for the next 49 years. Deere launches the Hawkeye Riding Cultivator, its first implement adapted for riding. One innovation is a wooden peg that breaks when it hits a solid object, saving the shovels. Deere & Company will introduce a similar concept on plows in 1950 with Sure-Trip safety-trip. After 31 years as a partnership or single proprietorship, the business is incorporated as Deere & Company. There are four initial shareholders, and John and Charles Deere own 65-percent of the stock. Charles Deere and entrepreneur Alvah Mansur establish the first branch house in Kansas City, Missouri. A semi-independent distributor, it is the forerunner of the company’s current sales organization. Within 20 years there are five branches across the country. Deere & Mansur Company is formed in Moline to manufacture corn planters. A separate organization from the similarly named Kansas City branch, it will become part of Deere & Company in 1910. Today, planters are still made on the original site at John Deere Seeding, Moline, IL. Deere & Company put into operation the first electric light power plant in Rock Island County. Purchased from the Brush Electric Company of Chicago, 1 dynamo, 16 single lamps, 1 switch and 400 carbons were installed at a total cost of more than $3,000. It was the first electricity in the area. The five best-selling products between 1879 and 1883 are walking plows, Gilpin sulkies, cultivators, shovel plows, and harrows. Walking plows account for more unit sales (224,062) than the other four combined. John Froehlich tests the first successful, gasoline powered tractor. In 1918, John Deere will acquire the successor company, the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company. The Furrow begins publication as “A Journal for the American Farmer.” The magazine’s distribution grows to 4 million readers by 1912. Today, it is published in 14 languages and read in 115 countries making it the most widely circulated farm magazine in the world. Long-time president Charles Deere dies, and is succeeded by son-in-law William Butterworth. During his 21-year tenure, annual sales would grow from $4.5 million to $61 million, and Deere would become leaders in both the harvesting and tractor business. After several years of consolidations and acquisitions, Deere & Company now counts planters, buggies, wagons, grain drills, and hay and harvesting equipment among its products. Sales grow from $5.2 million in 1910 to $30.7 million in 1913. John Deere enters the tractor business. In the midst of the launch of the All-Wheel Drive Tractor, Deere buys the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company, manufacturers of Waterloo Boy tractors. The company sells 5,634 Waterloo Boy tractors in its first year. An oversaturated and speculative tractor market results in industry over-production and widespread fraud. As a result, the Nebraska Tractor Tests are introduced to implement industry standards for performance. Test Number 001 features a John Deere Waterloo Boy N tractor. William Butterworth is elected president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Charles Deere Wiman, an army pilot decommissioned as captain after World War I, is named president. Butterworth maintains influence in the newly created position of Chairman of the Board. Responding to the impact of The Great Depression, the company took on $12 million in farmer notes, and extended terms on already purchased tractors and power farming machinery. As a result, sales fell 86% between 1930 and 1932, but strong farmer loyalty resulted. Despite hard financial times, Deere continues to introduce new products, including the Model “A” tractor. The similar, but smaller, Model “B” is produced the next year. These two models will remain in production until 1952. Emerging from the Great Depression, John Deere celebrates its 100th anniversary by achieving over $100 million in sales for the first time in company history.