John Deere came to Grand Detour in 1836, and in 1837 he fashioned a steel plow from a broken sawmill blade in his blacksmith shop at the nearby John Deere Historic Site. In 1843, John Deere and Leonard Andrus formed a partnership in blacksmithing, ploughmaking, and related work. In 1846, a two-story plow factory was built on this site, where ten employees manufactured 400 plows that year. The partnership ended in 1848, after which John Deere founded a new company bearing his name in Moline, Illinois, while Leonard Andrus and his partners continued operating the Grand Detour Plow Factory. The factory burned in 1857 and was rebuilt in 90 days. Sixty employees then produced 50-60 plows per day until the company moved to nearby Dixon, Illinois, in 1869 to be near the railroad. The abandoned factory burned again in 1890, and its last remnant reflects Grand Detour's early manufacturing heritage.

Photo: Anonymous

Grand Detour, Illinois · USA