“In Will County, Illinois, lived a famous blacksmith, John Lane, especially noted for his breaking-plows. “On many and many an acre of Will County,” wrote the pioneer historian [Rev. Alfred Bronson], “did Lane’s plows upturn the sod, drawn by four to eight yoke of oxen and steers and propelled by a ten-foot ox-gad mounted with a lash perhaps as long, the snap of which wielded by the Hoosier driver resounded like the crack of a rifle. On, on, over the prairie swells, with steady but ruthless tread, moved the long breaking team; and on, on, came the giant plow, cutting the turf with its sharp coulter, and turning over with its mold-board the rich earth in long, black ribbons; before it blooming and fragrant herb and beautiful flowers; behind it a dreary waste of black, fat humus, inviting the steps and stimulating the hopes of the sturdy planter. Ah! Breaking teams, plows, Hoosier drivers, prairies, and old Lane himself are now things of the past!””

(Chicago’s Highways Old and New, 1923).