Cyrus McCormick Moved to Chicago

Early in the 1840s, McCormick made the decision to broaden his customer base to the Midwest. He granted numerous business owners, including one in Cincinnati, Ohio, permission to produce his reaper by franchising his company. McCormick sold fifty reapers annually by 1844. Obed Hussey's reaper was not even close to McCormick's harvester in terms of quality, and McCormick swiftly outsold Hussey.

McCormick relocated his headquarters from Virginia to Chicago, Illinois, in 1846, building a facility that would start manufacturing his reapers in large quantities in 1848. The location of McCormick's facility in Chicago was optimal. The majority of immigrants who went to the frontier in the American West intended to buy property so they could start farming. In order to reduce the strain on their fields, McCormick believed that the migrants would want to buy his reaper. McCormick's presumption was accurate. By 1856, McCormick's business was employing 200 employees and producing 4,000 reapers annually. Additionally, McCormick started marketing his reaper across Europe.