Deere & Company
Agricultural & Construction EquipmentFounded 1837- Updated June 2026
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Last reviewed: June 2026
CorpDigest
Deere & Company
Company History
Founded 1837 in Moline, Illinois
Last reviewed: 2026-06-03 · By Swet Parvadiya
1837, Grand Detour, Illinois: John Deere, a 33-year-old blacksmith who had migrated west from Vermont, was watching farmers struggle with the heavy, sticky prairie soil that clung to the cast-iron plows designed for New England's sandy loam. The steel saw blade that arrived at his shop as scrap metal gave him the material to experiment. The polished steel surface that resulted — self-scouring rather than requiring constant manual cleaning — solved a problem that had been limiting agricultural productivity on the Illinois prairie.
The move to Moline in 1848 put the forge shop on the Mississippi River, providing water power and shipping access that the Grand Detour location couldn't offer. The formal incorporation as Deere & Company in 1868 created the legal structure for the growth that followed. The 1918 acquisition of the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company added tractor manufacturing capability — the transition from animal to mechanical power that would define 20th-century agriculture.
The 1960 New Generation tractor launch — a complete redesign that introduced modern ergonomics, enclosed cabs, and engine technology that competitors had not yet matched — established the engineering leadership position that Deere has maintained through successive generations of equipment. Each major platform refresh has required massive capital investment in engineering, tooling, and manufacturing retooling.
The 2017 acquisitions of Blue River Technology (precision agriculture, computer vision, weed detection) and Wirtgen Group (road construction equipment) in the same year marked the expansion into both technology-intensive agriculture and construction. Blue River's See & Spray technology was the foundational piece of the precision agriculture platform that now runs across the production agriculture equipment lineup.
John Deere (1804-1886) was an American blacksmith, inventor, and manufacturer whose invention of the self-scouring steel plow in 1837 transformed prairie agriculture and launched one of the most enduring companies in American industrial history. A perfectionist craftsman who insisted that every product bearing his name be made of the highest available quality materials, Deere established the brand identity of quality and reliability that has remained central to John Deere's competitive positioning for nearly two centuries. He served as president of Deere & Company from its formal incorporation in 1868 until 1886, when his son Charles assumed the presidency. Deere was also a civic leader in Moline, Illinois, serving as mayor from 1873 to 1875. He died on May 17, 1886, in Moline, having lived long enough to see the company he founded grow into the most important agricultural equipment manufacturer in North America. His famous dictum—that he would never put his name on a product that didn't have the best that was in it—remains a guiding principle in Deere & Company's operational culture today.
Working in his Grand Detour, Illinois blacksmith shop, John Deere fabricated the first self-scouring steel plow using a polished steel saw blade, solving the problem of prairie clay adhesion that had made large-scale Midwest farming impractical with cast-iron implements. This invention is widely regarded as one of the most consequential agricultural innovations in American history.
Recognizing the geographic limitations of Grand Detour, John Deere moved his manufacturing operations to Moline on the Mississippi River, where waterpower, steel shipping, and transportation infrastructure enabled significant production scaling. Moline has remained Deere & Company's global headquarters for over 175 years.
The business was formally incorporated as Deere & Company in Illinois in 1868, establishing the legal entity that continues to operate today. Charles Deere, John's son, was increasingly central to management during this period, bringing organizational discipline and commercial acumen that complemented his father's technical innovation.
Deere & Company entered the gasoline tractor market by acquiring the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company in Waterloo, Iowa, for approximately $2.35 million. This acquisition—one of the most important strategic decisions in company history—transformed Deere from a horse-drawn implement manufacturer into a tractor company just as the internal combustion engine was beginning to displace horse power on American farms.
On August 30, 1960, Deere unveiled its completely redesigned New Generation tractor line in Dallas, Texas, in what became known as Deere Day. The event attracted 6,000 dealers and generated extraordinary industry attention. The new tractors featured modern hydraulics, ergonomic operator stations, and dramatically improved performance—cementing Deere's position as the technology leader in North American agriculture.
Deere acquired NavCom Technology, a GPS and satellite navigation technology company, positioning itself as an early leader in precision agriculture. This acquisition formed the foundation of John Deere's precision guidance, auto-steer, and variable-rate application technology platforms that now generate billions of dollars in premium equipment pricing.
Deere completed its largest-ever acquisition by purchasing Wirtgen Group, the German road construction equipment manufacturer, for approximately $5.2 billion. Wirtgen added market-leading positions in cold milling machines, road pavers, and soil compaction equipment, substantially expanding Deere's construction equipment addressable market in Europe and Asia.
Deere acquired Blue River Technology, a machine learning and computer vision startup, for approximately $305 million. Blue River's See & Spray technology—which uses AI to identify individual plants and apply herbicide only to weeds rather than the entire field—became the foundation of one of Deere's most commercially significant precision agriculture innovations.
Deere publicly unveiled its commercially available fully autonomous tractor built on the 8R platform, equipped with six pairs of stereo cameras, computer vision algorithms, GPS, and cloud connectivity. The system allows tractors to operate entirely without a human in the cab during tillage operations, representing the most advanced production-ready autonomous farm equipment in the world.
Deere reported record fiscal year 2023 revenues of $61.3 billion and record net income of $10.2 billion, surpassing the previous year's records and achieving a net income margin of approximately 16.6 percent—a figure exceptional by any industrial manufacturing standard. The results reflected strong agricultural commodity prices, favorable pricing power, and operational excellence.
The See & Spray Ultimate system, which uses high-resolution cameras and AI-powered plant identification to apply herbicide selectively only to weeds rather than blanket-spraying, was commercially launched for cotton and soybean applications. The system claims herbicide savings of up to 67 percent, creating strong return-on-investment justification for premium pricing.
Despite a cyclical revenue decline to $51.7 billion in fiscal 2024, Deere maintained its technology investment pace and continued rolling out the Operations Center platform enhancements, autonomous tractor early commercial deployments, and connected machine ecosystem expansions—demonstrating the company's commitment to through-cycle technology investment as a competitive strategy.
Deere acquired the Waterloo, Iowa-based Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company to enter the rapidly growing gasoline tractor market at a pivotal moment when internal combustion engines were beginning to displace horse and mule power on American farms. The acquisition gave Deere immediate access to the Waterloo Boy tractor, which had established market credibility among Midwest farmers, along with the manufacturing facilities, engineering capabilities, and dealer relationships necessary to compete in the emerging tractor market. Without this acquisition, Deere might have remained a horse-drawn implement manufacturer unable to participate in the most important technological transition in agricultural history.
Deere acquired NavCom Technology, a developer of GPS-based navigation and positioning systems, to gain proprietary precision agriculture technology capabilities at a moment when satellite-guided farming was transitioning from experimental to commercially practical. The acquisition was a visionary bet that precision guidance, auto-steer, and variable-rate application technology would become standard features on agricultural equipment within a decade—a prediction that proved entirely correct. NavCom's StarFire satellite correction technology became the foundation of Deere's industry-leading precision guidance systems.
Deere acquired Blue River Technology, a Silicon Valley-based machine learning and computer vision startup, to gain foundational AI and plant identification technology that would become the basis of the See & Spray precision herbicide application system. Blue River had developed technology to distinguish individual plants using computer vision and apply inputs selectively to specific plants rather than treating entire fields uniformly—a paradigm shift in precision application that Deere's leadership recognized as transformative for agricultural chemical economics and sustainability. The acquisition price of approximately $305 million represented a significant premium to typical industrial acquisition multiples, reflecting Deere's willingness to pay technology company valuations for genuine AI capability.
Deere acquired the privately held German road construction equipment manufacturer Wirtgen Group for approximately $5.2 billion—the largest acquisition in company history—to establish a leading position in the road construction equipment market and meaningfully expand its Construction & Forestry segment. Wirtgen's portfolio included the world's leading cold milling machines (Wirtgen brand), road pavers (Vögele brand), soil and asphalt compactors (Hamm brand), and mobile crushing and screening equipment (Kleemann brand), together representing market leadership in the complete road construction workflow. The acquisition provided immediate scale in European and Asian markets where Deere's construction equipment presence had been limited.
Deere acquired Harvest Profit, an agricultural financial management software company that provided farmers with tools to track crop marketing positions, analyze profit scenarios across different price and yield assumptions, and integrate financial planning directly into farm operational decision-making. The acquisition was part of Deere's strategy to build the John Deere Operations Center into a comprehensive farm management platform that addressed not just equipment data and agronomic management but also the business and financial dimensions of farm operations. Financial management capabilities are a meaningful differentiator in Deere's Operations Center value proposition for commercial farmers.
In 1837 in Grand Detour, Illinois, blacksmith John Deere shaped a polished steel plow partly from a discarded saw blade so that sticky Midwest clay soil sloughed off instead of clinging to cast-iron surfaces. The self-scouring design let prairie farmers plow continuously rather than stopping every few steps to clean the moldboard. By 1857 the operation was producing roughly 10,000 plows a year, and Deere relocated manufacturing to Moline in 1848 to access Mississippi River waterpower and shipping.
Deere bought the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company of Waterloo, Iowa in 1918 for about $2.35 million, gaining the market-proven Waterloo Boy tractor and factory capacity. The deal converted Deere from a horse-drawn implement maker into a tractor manufacturer just as internal-combustion engines began displacing animal power. The Waterloo, Iowa complex still anchors production of Deere's flagship 8R and 9R tractors more than a century later.
On August 30, 1960, Deere unveiled its completely redesigned New Generation tractor line at a Dallas, Texas event that drew about 6,000 dealers from across North America. The machines introduced modern hydraulics, redesigned powertrains, and ergonomic operator stations that outclassed rival products. The launch propelled Deere past International Harvester to become the leading tractor manufacturer in North America, a position it has held ever since.
Deere unveiled a commercially available fully autonomous 8R tractor at CES in January 2022, using six pairs of stereo cameras plus computer vision and GPS to till fields with no operator in the cab. The following year it launched See & Spray Ultimate for cotton and soybeans, which identifies weeds with cameras and can cut herbicide use by up to 67 percent. Together these products marked Deere's shift from selling hardware toward selling technology-driven farming services.