| Click here to view slide show of company history |
| John Spangler
was the son of German immigrant parents. He bought 60 acres of cut over
stump land North of Jefferson in 1877. He raised a family of eight children
on this farm. The present Spangler family is still farming those original
sixty acres today. |
| John Spangler’s
youngest two sons were Albert and Linus. They returned to farm the homestead.
In 1920 they started the firm Spangler Brothers to grow open pollinated
corn. They relied on the advice and support of the Wisconsin Experiment
Association, which later became Wisconsin Crop Improvement. |
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Some of the
early varieties they grew were called Golden Glow, Silver King and a red
corn known as Northwestern Dent. There were hundreds of seed companies at
the time in Wisconsin with eight alone in the Jefferson area. Business was
good and Spangler Brothers opened an office in an old hotel in Jefferson
that served as their headquarters for close to forty years. |
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| Spangler
Brothers began selling hybrid seed corn in 1937. They were to raise Wisconsin
Public Hybrids for the next quarter century. They were also one of the first
seed companies in the state to build a “Wright” dryer. |
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| Dr. Andy
Wright was a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He published
the first design for a commercial dryer for seed corn production. The Wright
dryer used a slatted floor design and allowed hot air from a furnace to
be forced through the corn still on the ear. It greatly improved seed quality
and hundreds of them were built in coming years by seedsmen all over the
Midwest. |
| Albert Spangler’s
sons John and David became the second generation to enter the business in
the fifties. John and David moved out of downtown Jefferson building the
present day office at the farm in 1961. The brothers also slowly moved away
from marketing Wisconsin Public Hybrids. They started a research effort
and began developing their own proprietary corn hybrids. |
| The company
also began marketing public variety soybean seed in the mid sixties. It
came in two-bushel bags and soybeans were still a minor crop in the area
at the time. But demand increased and by the early seventies the company
began its present day lineup of proprietary seed. |
| John Spangler’s
son Jeff became the third generation to work at the firm in 1986. David
Spangler passed away in 1989. Spangler Brothers changed their name to Spangler
SeedTech in 1997. The company celebrated their eightieth birthday in the
year 2000. |
| Now John
and Jeff along with their employees are leading the company into untold
changes in the 21st century. But one thing hasn’t changed at all. The company’s
mission is still to provide the best seed products to Wisconsin farmers
at reasonable prices. |
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