American Agriculture

American Agriculture History Minute: Tractor Supply Company Starts as a Mail-Order Company

Dan American Agriculture History Minute, This Land of Ours

I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute.

American Agriculture
This old tractor is a Rock Island of the Rock Island Plow Company of the 1920’s and 30’s, later to be absorbed by Case.
DepositPhotos image

In 1938, Charles E. Schmidt began a mail order tractor parts business. The company got its start in Minot, North Dakota in 1938 as a mail order supplier of tractor parts.

The first retail store founded in 1939. We know it today as Tractor Supply Company, and in January of 1959, Tractor Supply Company became publicly traded on the over-the-counter market and reached $10 million in sales.

That’s today’s American Agriculture History Minute. I’m Mark Oppold. Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next time.