Shops, Barns, Varmints, and Trucks - Some Caterpillar history

Caterpillar Inc. was formed in 1925 from the merger of two similar companies of Holt Manufacturing Company and CL Best Tractor Company. The Holt Manufacturing Company managed by Benjamin Holt, in 1890 built their first experimental steam traction engine, nicknamed "Old Betsy".

These tractors could harvest large fields for one-sixth the cost of a horse-drawn combine.

In 1892 Holt manufactured a steam-driven tractor capable of hauling 50 short tons of freight at 3 mph. These new steam driven tractors often sank into the earth of the San Joaquin Valley Delta farmland surrounding Stockton California. Benjamin Holt attempted to fix the problem by increasing the size and width of the wheels up to 7.5 feet tall and 6 feet wide, producing a tractor 46 feet wide, but this also made the tractors increasingly complex, expensive, and difficult to maintain. Holt thought of wrapping planks around the wheels. He replaced the wheels on a 40 horsepower Holt steamer, No. 77, with a set of wooden tracks bolted to chains.

On Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1904, he successfully tested the updated machine plowing the soggy delta land of Roberts Island. A bystander of this new development said Holt’s invention moved like a caterpillar, and so the name was born. Two years later Holt sold his first steam powered crawler tractors for $5500.

Cementing the name for history in 1910 Holt registered the caterpillar name as a trademark.

During World War I, Holt tractors were used to replace horses to haul artillery and other supplies. The Quartermaster Corps also used them to haul long trains of freight wagons over the unimproved dirt tracks behind the front. Holt tractors were also the inspiration for the development of the British and French tanks, which profoundly altered ground warfare tactics.

Clarence Leo Best began manufacturing tractors out of Elmhurst California in 1910, and his company too was focusing on track driven equipment. In 1925 the two companies merged as CL Best was having numerous financial difficulties, and the name that resulted was Caterpillar of course!

CL Best went on to fill the chairman position at Caterpillar from 1925 till his death in 1951.

The tie into the museum is that from 2011 to 2016 Caterpillar Inc. produced on the road trucks, and we have in our possession here a rare Caterpillar semi. Our vehicle is a 2015 Cat CT 660, and most people are unaware that Caterpillar made semis and they are pleased to learn this fact when they visit.