On this day in 1869, the U.S. Patent office issued a patent that likely contributed to the speed and efficiency of the late nineteenth century “turning over” of the Dakota prairies from a vast buffalo pasture tended by native people, to a great green quilted landscape of farms tilled by newcomers.

By this time the Homestead Act was in place, the Civil War was over, the Indians and the buffalo were being removed, and the advancing railroads were about to cross into present day North Dakota. The early settlers were moving into the area overland or by river. A trickle would soon turn into a torrent when the rails were laid down and the marketing campaigns cranked up.

Whether arriving by wagon or train, virtually all who planned to farm knew that “breaking” the prairie with a plow was one of the first tasks at hand—along with collecting buffalo bones and building a shelter. In those days a plow was standard equipment. Success was measured in acres “broken.”

The Vermont born blacksmith John Deere had taken a giant leap forward in plow design back in 1837 when he developed a properly shaped metal plow that would cleanly cut and turn over the rich Midwestern sod. That level of plow technology coincided with the turning over of places like Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa.

Still, there was a tradeoff between steel plowshares that wouldn’t break, but would wear out quickly—and cast iron plowshares that wouldn’t wear so quickly, but were brittle and breakable. The next step—covered by a new patent issued to James Oliver—was an innovative cast iron manufacturing process called “chilling,” by which the casting was cooled in such a way that the wear surface was hardened and shined like glass and the back cooled more slowly and was tougher. Simply put, the Oliver Chilled Plow was superior to others on the market and was cheaper to manufacture.

Up to this point, Oliver’s Indiana company, South Bend Iron Works, had been a job shop making castings for everything from sleigh runners to sewing machines. With the patent and an infusion of capital from Clement Studebaker, a South Bend wagon manufacturer, the company was soon specializing only in plows and other farm implements.

The supply was ready and there would soon be plenty of demand from the Dakotas and elsewhere. The Dakota sodbuster was not going to heed the wise old Indian who told him the plow turned the earth “wrong side up.”

Deere and Oliver plows, and other innovations like McCormick reapers and Case threshing machines were helping make farming on a larger scale possible, just as homesteaders and bonanza farmers were rolling into Dakota by the trainload. The great Dakota Land Boom lasted from 1879 to 1886. In 1887, the Oliver Company went global, exporting plows to South America, Africa, and Australia. After plowing up the Great Plains, “Plowmakers for the World” became the company’s trademark.

It would be more than century before the plow would be largely replaced by implements and methods that are better for the environment, and the wise Indian would be vindicated. The Oliver Company, once a huge global industry, has come and gone with the plow, but not before leaving its mark on the Dakota prairie.

Sources:
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/prospector/intro6.htm
http://www.extension.umn.edu/newsletters/sustainableagriculture/FD1049.html
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/wi/county/eauclaire/history/ourstory/vol5/farming.html
http://www.deere.com/en_US/compinfo/history/
http://www.indianahistory.org/pop_hist/people/oliver.html
http://dig.lib.niu.edu/twain/economic.html
http://www.centerforhistory.org/oliver_corp.html
http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/pic/1999/99.mar.html

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