Origins ] , one of the founders of Holt Manufacturing Company The company traces its roots to the
steam tractor machines manufactured by the Holt Manufacturing Company in 1890. The steam tractors of the 1890s and early 1900s were extremely heavy, sometimes weighing per
horsepower, and 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 tall and wide, producing a tractor wide, but this also made the tractors increasingly complex, expensive, and difficult to maintain. Another solution considered was to lay a temporary
plank road ahead of the steam tractor, but this was time-consuming, expensive, and interfered with earthmoving. Holt thought of wrapping the planks around the wheels. Contemporaneously,
Richard Hornsby & Sons in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England, developed a steel plate-tracked vehicle, which it patented in 1904. This tractor was the first to be steered using differential braking of the tracks, eliminating the forward tiller and steering wheel. Several tractors were made and sold to operate in the
Yukon, one example of which was in operation until 1927, and remnants of it still exist. Hornsby found a limited market for their tractor, so they sold their patent to Holt five years after its development. Company photographer Charles Clements, looking at the machine's upside-down image through his camera lens, commented that the track rising and falling over the carrier rollers looked like a
caterpillar,
Headquarters locations , in 1910. Tractors were assembled in place before assembly lines were introduced. Holt bought the plant from the bankrupt Colean Manufacturing Co. in 1910. , period 1930–1945 On February 2, 1910, Holt opened up a plant in
East Peoria, Illinois, led by his nephew Pliny Holt. There, Pliny met farm implement dealer
Murray Baker, who knew of an empty factory that had been recently built to manufacture farm implements and steam
traction engines. Baker, who later became the first executive vice president of what became Caterpillar Tractor Company, wrote to Holt headquarters in Stockton and described the plant of the bankrupt Colean Manufacturing Co. of East Peoria. On October 25, 1909, Pliny Holt purchased the factory, Holt incorporated it as the Holt Caterpillar Company, although he did not trademark the name Caterpillar until August 2, 1910. Tractors were built in both Stockton and East Peoria. On January 31, 2017, the company announced plans to move their headquarters from Peoria to
Deerfield, Illinois, by the end of 2017. The new location at 500 Lake Cook Road is the former site of a
Fiatallis plant that manufactured wheel loaders for many years. On June 14, 2022, the company announced plans to move its global headquarters from Deerfield, Illinois, to
Irving, Texas, beginning later in the year, citing "the best strategic interest of the company."
Use in World War I The first
tanks used in WWI were manufactured by
William Foster & Co., also in Lincolnshire, England, and were introduced to the battlefield in 1916. That company had collaborated with Hornsby in the development of the vehicles demonstrated to the British military in 1907, providing the paraffin (kerosene) engines. Holt's track-type tractors played a support role in World War I. Even before the U.S. formally entered WWI, Holt had shipped 1,200 tractors to England, France, and Russia for agricultural purposes. These governments, however, sent the tractors directly to the battlefront, where the military put them to work hauling artillery and supplies. When
World War I broke out, the British War Office ordered a Holt tractor and put it through trials at
Aldershot. The War Office was suitably impressed and chose it as a
gun tractor. Over the next four years, the Holt tractor became a major
artillery tractor, mainly used to haul medium guns such as the
6-inch howitzer, the
60-pounder, and later the
9.2-inch howitzer. Holt tractors were also the inspiration for the development of the British
tank, which profoundly altered ground warfare tactics. Major
Ernest Swinton, sent to France as an army
war correspondent, very soon saw the potential of a track-laying tractor. Although the British later chose an English firm to build its first tanks, the Holt tractor became "one of the most important military vehicles of all time." As a result, Best had gained a considerable market advantage over Holt by war's end. Best also assumed considerable debt to allow it to continue expansion, especially the production of its new Best Model 60 "Tracklayer". Both companies were adversely impacted by the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy, which contributed to a nationwide
depression, further inhibiting sales. On December 5, 1920, 71-year-old Benjamin Holt died after a month-long illness.
Caterpillar company formed (1925) , New Mexico, United States in 1931 , introduced in 1938, at the Serpentine Vintage Tractor Museum,
Serpentine, Western Australia The banks and bankers who held the company's large debt forced the Holt board of directors to accept their candidate, Thomas A. Baxter, to succeed Benjamin Holt. Baxter initially cut the large tractors from the company's product line and introduced smaller models focused on the agricultural market. When the
Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 funded a US$1 billion federal highway building program, Baxter began refocusing the company towards building road-construction equipment. Both companies also faced fierce competition from the
Fordson company. Between 1907 and 1918, Best and Holt had spent about US$1.5 million in legal fees fighting each other in a number of
contractual,
trademark, and
patent infringement lawsuits. Harry H. Fair of the bond brokerage house of Pierce, Fair & Company of San Francisco had helped to finance C. L. Best's debt and Holt shareholders approached him about their company's financial difficulty. Fair recommended that the two companies should merge. In April and May 1925, the financially stronger C. L. Best merged with the market leader Holt Caterpillar to form the Caterpillar Tractor Co. The new company was headquartered in San Leandro until 1930, when under the terms of the merger, it was moved to Peoria. The Caterpillar company consolidated its product lines, offering only five track-type tractors: the
2 Ton,
5 Ton, and
10 Ton from the Holt Manufacturing Company's old product line and the and from the C. L. Best Tractor Co.'s former product line. The 10 Ton and 5 Ton models were discontinued in 1926. In 1928, the 2 Ton was discontinued. Sales the first year were US$13 million. By 1929, sales climbed to US$52.8 million, and Caterpillar continued to grow throughout the
Great Depression of the 1930s. Caterpillar adopted the
diesel engine to replace gasoline engines. During
World War II, Caterpillar products found fame with the
Seabees, construction battalions of the
United States Navy, which built
airfields and other facilities in the
Pacific Theater of Operations. Caterpillar ranked 44th among United States corporations in the value of wartime military production contracts. During the postwar construction boom, the company grew at a rapid pace, and launched its first venture outside the U.S. in 1950, marking the beginning of Caterpillar's development into a
multinational corporation. In 2018, Caterpillar was in the process of restructuring, closing a demonstration center in Panama and an engine-manufacturing facility in Illinois.
Expansion in developing markets Caterpillar built its first Russian facility in the town of
Tosno, located near
St. Petersburg, Russia. It was completed in 16 months, occupied in November 1999, and began fabricating machine components in 2000. It had the first electrical substation built in the
Leningrad Oblast since the Communist government was dissolved on December 26, 1991. The facility was built under harsh winter conditions, where the temperature was below . The facility construction was managed by the
Lemminkäinen Group in
Helsinki, Finland. In May 2022, production at the Tosno plant was stopped. In November 2023, an agreement was reached on the sale of Caterpillar assets to the Russian company PSK - New Solutions, founded by people from
Sberbank. Experts believe that the resumption of Caterpillar production is unlikely and the plant will be repurposed. The $125 million Caterpillar Suzhou,
People's Republic of China facility, manufactures medium-wheel loaders and motor graders, primarily for the Asian market. The first machine was scheduled for production in March 2009. URS Ausino, in San Francisco, California, manages facility construction. Caterpillar has manufactured in
Brazil since 1960. In 2010 the company announced plans to further expand production of
backhoe and small wheel loaders with a new factory. Caterpillar has been manufacturing machines, engines, and generator sets in India, as well. Caterpillar has three facilities in India, which are in Tamil Nadu (Thiruvallur and Hosur) and Maharastra (Aurangabad). 2025,
BIEC Acquisitions In addition to increasing sales of its core products, much of Caterpillar's growth has been through acquisitions, including:
Divestitures Caterpillar occasionally divests assets that do not align with its core competencies. ==Business lines==