Holt Tractor

Holt Tractor Company

LANGUAGE:English

TIME:

1906 on.

LOCATION:

Stockton, CA

CATEGORY:

Agricultural machinery

DISCIPLINE:

Agriculture

SHORT DESCRIPTION:

The company built caterpillar tractors

DESCRIPTION:

In the 1890's, in San Joaquin Valley, CA, Benjamin Holt and Daniel Best built steam traction engines to pull combines and knew how difficult it could be to operate heavy machinery on the soft soil in some of the grain-growing areas. They both got round this by using huge wheels in order the spread the weight of the tractor. Holt had a machine with triple wheels on both sides and each wheel was six foot wide.

In 1904, Holt built his first experimental tracklayer. The driving wheels of the steam traction engine had been replaced by a set of tracks which had wooden shoes. The endless track provided traction.

In 1906 Holt’s built the first crawler tractor powered by one of their own gasoline engines. In 1908 Holt took over Daniel Best and opened a new factory in Peoria, Illinois in 1909. In 1910 Holt’s registered the 'Caterpillar' name (which he had already been using for about five years).

In 1910 Best’s son started up on his own as the C L Best Gas Traction Company. Both companies made crawler tractors and were fierce competitors.

Crawler tracks opened up the market even further for tractors and firms such as International Harvester* benefited from the caterpillar system.

During World War I, the British army looked to America for a track system for their secret project to built the first tank*. Holt crawler tracks ‘were modified’ by the British for use in the tank, and Holt tracks were used by the French for the tanks they developed during the first world war. Much of Holt’s production was for the United States army and was used in Europe.

In 1925 Holt’s and Best merged and formed the Caterpillar Tractor Company. They were a big succss. In 1931 they were the second North American company to fit a Diesel* engine in a track-layer.

ONELINER: First caterpillar tractor

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Moorhouse, Robert, The Illustrated History of Tractors,Apple, London, 1996

Williams, Michael,Tractors Since 1889, Farming Press, Ipswich, 1991