Lyle Yost
Farm equipment manufacturer. Born: 1913. Died: 2012.
Lyle Yost started Hesston Corporation in Hesston, Kansas in 1947 with five employees working in a small Quonset hut. The first product they designed and sold was an auger to unload grain from combines. The company grew as Yost and his designers came up with more and more useful agricultural devices, including straw choppers for combines, row crop savers and the first self-propelled hay cutter or windrower.
By the mid-1970s Hesston Corporation employed more than 3,500 workers in its Hesston plant and other locations around the world. He was named the Native Sons and Daughters' Kansan of the Year in 1973. In 1977 Yost sold his corporation to the Fiat Company in Italy. Yost was elected to the Kansas Business Hall of Fame in 2006.
Entry: Yost, Lyle
Author: G. Joseph Pierron
Author information: Judge Pierron serves on the Kansas Court of Appeals and has an interest in Kansas history.
Date Created: November 2012
Date Modified: August 2013
The author of this article is solely responsible for its content.
