JOHN DEERE DUBUQUE WORKS

John Deere Dubuque Works has been one of Dubuque's major employers. Photo courtesy: Bob Reding

JOHN DEERE DUBUQUE WORKS. Major manufacturing firm of construction, utility, and forestry equipment in the Midwest. The need for a new factory to make tractors became apparent to the company in 1943. The decision to come to Dubuque was made toward the end of 1944. Construction on the Dubuque plant began three miles north of Dubuque in June 1945 on more than 700 acres of land.

Training for the first Dubuque employees was done by workers from the Moline plant in the old round house in East Dubuque. The first tractor from the Dubuque plant was not produced until late 1946. Plant expansion was made in 1948-1949 and again in 1950 with government contracts for the Korean War.

The original plant covered six hundred thousand square feet. With expanded product lines, factory space increased so that by 1990 the Dubuque Works stretched over 1,465 acres, an area large enough to cover 110 football fields. Products include backhoe loaders, hydrostatic crawlers, log skidders, two-wheel-drive utility tractors, and utility and construction crawler loaders and dozers. Employment at the Dubuque plant peaked in 1980 with 8,270 workers. lay-offs, a result of bad economic times, and company-encouraged early retirements resulted in employment falling drastically to around three thousand in 1990.

The Dubuque plant is headquarters for the John Deere Industrial Equipment Division's Dealer Technical Assistance Center. A technical service for dealers, DTAC is staffed by specialists with years of factory and field experience to provide dealers with prompt answers to customers' questions.