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Back in the 1950s, it wasn’t uncommon for families in the rural south to have a garden and sell their surplus crops for a little extra money. In Gleason, the cash crop was sweet potatoes, earning the little municipality the title of Tater Town, USA. Many households in Gleason raised a plot of sweet potatoes. During the harvest, the potatoes were brought to a central warehouse and were sent out to various vendors in the county.
In 1950, Claude Steele (1904-1983) began a produce business that transported peaches, apples, and other crops by truck across numerous states. His business grew rapidly when he added sweet potatoes. Three years later his son-in-law, Dudley “Butch” Sanders (1927-1990) joined the produce business. Dudley worked as a teacher and coach while moonlighting with his father-in-law to supplement his income.
They continued their regular line of work for much of the year, but in the spring months, they focused on sweet potatoes. Before too long, the Steele Plant Company became the largest sweet potato dealer in Tennessee.
In 1974, the Steele-Sanders family decided to begin working with Bart Brown of Omaha Plant Farms in Omaha, Texas. Steele Plant Company was acquired to drop ship sweet potato plants for Brown’s company, soon other vendors were requesting the service of the Gleason business.
Dudley and his wife, Martha (1927-2011), had two children, Ken and Kay, both of which joined in the family business. Ken and his wife, Valerie, along with Kay and her husband, Larry Hudson, currently serve as partners. Ken started full-time in 1979 and Larry joined in 1981. The current education of the family partnership is not that of a usual farming family. Ken has an engineering degree from UT Martin, Valerie has a liberal arts degree from Freed-Hardeman University, Kay has an English degree from UT Martin and Larry has an animal science degree from UT Martin.
A transition was made from focusing on raising the potatoes themselves to raising the plants for families and businesses around the country. The business has grown from a small patch of land on Gibbs Road to the 135-acre Albert Wright Farm, purchased in 2009. The current location cultivates sweet potatoes on a thirty-five-acre annual crop rotation.
Steele Plant Company ships upwards of nearly 4.5 million plants a year from their downtown location. They process between 40 and 45 thousand orders a year, mostly to individuals buying a few dozen plants, shipping all 50 states and occasionally to overseas customers.