This is a reproduction of an 1837 John Deere Tractor. John Deere arrived in Illinois from Vermont in 1836 and set up as a blacksmith in Grand Detour. When he saw the trouble farmers had with iron plow blades trying to sticky prairie soil, he set about to make an improvement. He reshaped a broken steel saw blade and attached it to a wooden moldboard. Dirt did not collect on the steel blade. Farmers did not have to keep stopping to clean the blade. (read the article on John Deere's plow in The Living Museum magazine, vol. 71, no. 1-2, 2009)