Toro history

When Bull’s fortunes floundered in 1916, Toro paid their debts and took on their inventory, selling the rights to some investors.

1918 Bull Tractor folds, forcing Toro to fend for itself.

1919 Company is renamed Toro Manufacturing Company.

In 1921 the opportunity came for Toro to reinvent itself and become profitable for the long term.

In 1922, Toro signed its first distributor agreement, allowing the company to further their success by increasing their market exposure.

1924: Toro introduces its first power mower, the rugged and highly versatile 30-inch Park Special.

By 1925 the Toro name had become synonymous with turf maintenance among nearly all the major golf courses in the nation.

The first Toro greens mower came about a few years later, and they went international in 1928.

In 1929, 13 distributorships were in place and Toro decided to go public, realizing that its research and development edge had to be maintained to thwart rising competition.

The Toro Manufacturing Company became the Toro Manufacturing Corporation of Minnesota in 1935, representing their rapid growth and expansion over the previous twenty years.

1939 Toro introduces its first power mower for home use.

1942:Toro ceases production of domestic products to manufacture goods to support the United States war effort during WWII, after having successfully establishing itself as a global leader in the golf and all phases of the professional and fledgling residential mower industries.

Robert Gibson, Whitney Miller, and David Lilly, all veterans and all friends since their days at Dartmouth College, purchased the company in 1945 and fueled it for the next several years with youthful ambition and systematic expansion.

In 1950 Lilly succeeded Goit as president.

1951 Company begins making snow removal equipment.

1952: Toro opens a unique engineering and agronomic research, development and test facility in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Sales increases uniformly reached double-digit percentages, despite a lukewarm entry into snow-removal equipment and a poor performance by the Tomlee Tool Company, acquired in 1954.

Toro also became the first lawn and garden company to advertise on television in 1956, with ads promoting their new Power-Handle, a portable motor that could power a number of yard implement attachments.

An industry standard, the Park Special becomes a leading seller through 1961 when it is displaced by demand for rotary mowers.

Expanded into Irrigation Products in 1962

By the end of the decade, with a greatly strengthened commercial division and the introduction in 1968 of the electric start feature for its consumer mowers, Toro's sales surpassed $50 million.

Growth during the decade for The Toro Company (so named in 1971) was phenomenal.

1972: Continued innovation and strong customer relationships propel Toro to #1 in golf course irrigation.

In 1974, Toro president David Lilly was determined to make the company a full-line lawn and garden manufacturer.

Melrose replaced McLaughlin in 1981 and went to work quickly, cutting salaried staff by nearly half, closing plants, and instituting a "just-in-time" inventory system to prevent future overproduction.

They launched their extremely successful consumer walk power mower in 1982.

Ken Melrose replaced McLaughlin in 1983 and went to work quickly, cutting salaried staff by nearly half, closing plants, and instituting a "just-in-time" inventory system to prevent future overproduction.

The 1986 purchase of Wheel Horse (a manufacturer of lawn tractors) and Toro's entry into the lawn aeration business helped push sales to more than $500 million the following year.

Rounding out the decade was the company's 1989 purchase of one of its chief lawnmower competitors, Outboard Marine Corporation's Lawn Boy, for $98.5 million.

By this time, too, the firm's professional product lines were generating fully two-thirds of revenues, compared to 41 percent in 1990.

Expanding upon its irrigation lines, Toro entered the fertilizer market in 1992 with the Toro BioPro brand environmentally friendly liquid fertilizer.

In 1994 Toro began manufacturing recycling equipment for landscape contractors and housing developers when it acquired Olathe Manufacturing and formed a new Recycling Equipment Division.

A lack of snow during the year did not hurt the company as much as in previous light-snow years because snow throwers now accounted for only about 4 percent of total sales, compared to 10 percent in 1995.

In December 1996 the company acquired the James Hardie Irrigation Group from James Hardie Industries Limited of Australia for $118 million, one of Toro's largest acquisitions ever.

The company also generates an increasing share of its total revenues outside the United States&mdashout 22 percent in fiscal 1997.

The February 1998 acquisition of Drip In Irrigation further expanded Toro's drip irrigation lines.

Also in 1999, the company introduced its Toro Personal Pace lawnmower, and it divested another noncore product line, its fertilizer business.

Padley, Karen, "Toro, World's Largest Lawnmower Maker, Reforms Itself to Beef Up Stock Price," St Paul Pioneer Press, September 10, 2000.

The Beatrice plant came to Toro in 2001 through the acquisition of Beatrice-based Goossen Industries, Inc., maker of debris vacuums and blowers for the commercial market.

Welbes, John, "Toro Looks to Maintain Golf-Course Equipment Sales," St Paul Pioneer Press, August 17, 2002.

The Home Depot line was augmented in 2003 with a new line of ZTR riding mowers.

Toro also shut down an engine manufacturing plant in Oxford, Mississippi, during fiscal 2004 and completed two more minor but strategic acquisitions.

The company also generates an increasing share of its total revenues outside the United States, nearly 25 percent in fiscal 2005.

In 2007, the low-end lawn and garden tractor product manufacturing was outsourced to MTD Products, to be sold at Home Depot stores.

2014: The Toro Company celebrates its Centennial and Legacy of Excellence.

2019: The Toro Company assumes a leadership position in the underground construction industry through the acquisition of Charles Machine Works of Perry, Oklahoma, the parent company of Ditch Witch® and other leading underground construction brands.

2020: Toro broadens its innovative portfolio of professional turf and snow and ice management equipment with the acquisition of Venture Products.