Who Owns Tractor Supply?

Tractor Supply began in 1938 when Charles E. Schmidt, a Chicago-area equipment salesman, started a mail-order business in Minot, North Dakota, selling tractor engine parts and supplies to farmers. The first physical store opened in Minot in 1939. The chain grew across the Midwest and into Canada through the 1940s and 1950s on the strength of its farm parts catalog.

Schmidt sold the company to National Industries in 1959. A series of ownership changes followed, including a period under Fuqua Industries and a 1982 leveraged buyout. By the mid-1980s the chain was losing money and shedding stores. A management-led turnaround narrowed the focus to the hobby farmer, small rancher, and rural homeowner, a customer base large enough to support a national specialty format but underserved by big-box retail.

The company went public on NASDAQ in February 1994 and used the capital to rebuild its store base. Growth was steady and profitable: the chain passed 1,000 stores in 2005, 1,500 in 2011, and 2,000 in 2020. Throughout, the format stayed consistent: stores of roughly 15,000 to 20,000 square feet in towns on the edges of metropolitan markets and in rural communities.

The brand added two acquisition chapters in the 2020s. In October 2022, the company bought Orscheln Farm and Home, a 166-store Missouri-based competitor, for $393.4 million. After divesting 85 locations under an FTC consent agreement, it converted the retained 81 stores to the Tractor Supply banner. In December 2024, the company acquired Allivet, an online pet pharmacy, folding the brand's assortment into a pharmacy channel for pet and livestock medications.

Today the Tractor Supply banner anchors a company that reported $15.52 billion in net sales for fiscal 2025 and $3.91 billion for the third quarter of 2026.