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Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “American Agriculture History Minute”
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. In the early 1930s, roughly 9 out of 10 rural homes were still without electric power. Farm families quickly learned to use every minute of sunlight for outdoor chores and lift their homes with kerosene lanterns at night. That would begin to change in May 1933, passage of the Tennessee Valley …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. A central Iowa cattle feeder in the mid-1920s believed he could produce better cattle by paying closer attention to what they ate. His idea was to start with young calves. Feed them quality feed supplements, not just feed loaded with fillers, as he says. So, he developed his own feed. He …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Logos are an important part of any company’s identity. Leaping Deer of John Deere, Checkerboard Square of Ralston Purina. J.I.K. started his implement company in 1847. He wasn’t looking for a company logo at the time, only company sales to keep his company afloat. The Civil War broke out, drawing many …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. In 1906, Elias Ammons was president of the Colorado Cattle and Horse Growers Association, later served as governor of Colorado. George Ballantine was general manager of the Denver Union Stockyard Company, and Fred Johnson was publisher of the Record Stockman. These three men in 1906 put together what would become the …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. The National Western Stock Show in Denver began in 1906. The horse show now among the largest in the world, more than 18,000 entries. National Western Rodeo, considered one of the largest indoor rodeos and has won honors from the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. And additionally, Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Agriculture in what is now Colorado began taking shape in the early 1850s. Then Rocky Mountain News founder William N. Byers passed out seeds to make his newspaper the principal chronicle of early farming in Colorado. By the 1870s, Byers facilitated the colony of Greeley, Colorado’s first major agricultural settlement and …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. In the early 1820s, after the Louisiana purchase of 1803, the U.S. government decided to conduct agricultural experiments in what is now Kansas. Native Indians had long planted corn in northeast Kansas, and the government saw potential in expanding trade west of Kansas City. Records show the government sent Daniel Morgan …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. Greeley became Colorado’s first major agricultural settlement, and they soon discovered there that irrigation was going to be the key to what was called the Great American Desert at that time. And by 1900, Colorado indeed led the nation in the acreage of irrigated farmland. But ever-larger federal reclamation projects transformed …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. At the close of the Civil War, the government offered homesteads in Kansas to Union Army veterans and more than 100,000 took advantage. Most were strong young veterans who had left their families to fight for the Union and became really the first real pioneer farmers in Kansas. The majority had …
I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute. 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, …
