The Fate-Root-Heath Company of Plymouth, Ohio was a manufacturer of yard locomotives and clay extruding machinery for brick making. With the stock market crash of 1929 and the depression that followed, sales for locomotives fell and the company began looking for other less costly items to produce. The result was the Plymouth farm tractor. After a conflict arose with Chrysler Corporation over the use of the Plymouth name the tractor was renamed Silver King. From 1934 to February 1954, the company built 8,600 tractors.