Holt Manufacturing Company

Charles H. Holt arrived in San Francisco from Concord, New Hampshire, in 1864 to form C. H. Holt and Co. Initially the company produced wooden wagon wheels and later, steel wheels for streetcars. In 1869, at age 20, his younger brother Benjamin went to work in their father's sawmill in New Hampshire along with William Harrison Holt and Ames Frank Holt, preparing hardwoods for shipping to Charles in San Francisco. – to manage the eastern business. The brothers built a factory in Concord, New Hampshire, to manufacture wagon wheels, wheel components, bodies and running gear. In 1872, at age 23, Benjamin was given an interest in his father's business, and he assumed more responsibility for the company's operations. W. Harrison Holt moved to Tiffin, Ohio, to manage the company's lumber business there, where he remained until the early 1880s. Their mother died in 1875, and their father died eight years later in 1883. Four days later, they also filed incorporation papers for "Holt Manufacturing Company" with Charles H. Holt, Benjamin Holt, Frank A. Holt, G. H. Cowie, and G. L. Dickenson as directors. The Holt Bros. Company formed a subsidiary, "The Stockton Wheel Company", to build the wheels. and was hot enough to season woods to prepare them for use in the arid valleys of California and the deserts of the West. The factory cost US$65,000 (or about $ ) to build , first to patent a workable crawling-type tread design, at age 45 in 1894 During the first year, the Holt subsidiary Stockton Wheel Company produced 6,000 wagon wheels and 5,000 carriage bodies. One of their most popular wheel types was in diameter used by redwood loggers, who connected two of these wheels with a strong axle, and then attached a team of horses to pull logs from the forest. C. L. did not stay long, and left in 1910 to form the C. L. Best Gas Traction Company to replace his father's firm, resulting in further difficulties between the two men. Holt registered "Caterpillar" as a trademark in 1911. Holt wanted to find manufacturing facilities closer to the vast agricultural markets of the midwest. Benjamin Holt's nephew, Pliny E. Holt, had been dispatched in March 1909 to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he began manufacturing operations. Pliny met Murray Baker, an implement dealer, who knew of an available factory that had been used to manufacture farm implements and steam traction engines. Baker, who later became the first executive vice president of what became Caterpillar Tractor Company, The "Holt Caterpillar Company" was incorporated in both Illinois and California on January 12, 1910, and Pliny accepted the deed to the plant on Feb 16, 1910. The Peoria facility proved so profitable that only two years later the Peoria facility employed 625 people and was exporting tractors to Argentina, Canada, and Mexico. Post-war challenges Holt tractors were widely used as artillery tractors during WWI, and their capabilities and reliability had become well known. Benjamin Holt gained experience securing government contracts. These capabilities separated him from his competition. Holt had been considered a "quiet and unassuming man who loved his work". He was well liked by his workers and dedicated a trust fund for employees who suffered financial difficulties. Caterpillar company formed The banks who held the company's large debt forced the Holt board of directors to accept their candidate, Thomas F. Baxter, to succeed Benjamin Holt. Baxter was a former Boston banker who had joined the Holt company in 1913 as a business manager. The company struggled with the transition from wartime boom to peacetime bust. 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 focusing company assets towards road construction. The two companies competed economically and intellectually: Benjamin Holt had 47 patents in his name, while his nephew Pliny Holt had 38 patents; Best founder Daniel Best received 42 patents and his son C. L. Best had 27 patents. Harry H. Fair of the bond brokerage house of Pierce, Fair & Company of San Francisco was involved in funding C. L. Best's debt, when Holt shareholders approached him about their company's financial plight. He concluded that both companies might not survive and recommended that the Holt and Best companies should consolidate operations. In April and May 1925, the financially stronger C. L. Best merged with the market leader Holt Caterpillar to form the Caterpillar Tractor Co. Baxter had been removed as CEO earlier in 1925, and Clarence Leo Best assumed the title of CEO, and remained in that role until October 1951. After Benjamin Holt's death in 1920, William K. "Bill" Holt formed the first Caterpillar dealership in Mexico. In 1933, he was authorized to operate the dealership for the 60 southern counties of Texas. The company merged with another Holt business and was renamed HOLT CAT. It continues as the largest Caterpillar dealership in the US, under the ownership and management of Benjamin's great-grandson, Peter Holt (who is better known as the owner of the NBA's San Antonio Spurs, the five-time world champions). As of 2010, Caterpillar Inc. was the 229nd largest company in the world. In 2011, Caterpillar was the best-performing stock last year among the 30 companies in the Dow Jones industrial average with a market value of US$45.13 billion. Caterpillar is one of the 30 companies whose publicly listed shares are tracked in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It is a Fortune 500 company, ranked number 229 in 2010, and first in its industry, with more than $67 billion in assets. == Tractor design ==

Horse-drawn combine harvester Among his brothers, Benjamin was the most technically adept. He saw the need for farm machinery, and expanded the company's line to include farm equipment, including combine harvesters and steam-powered traction engines required to pull them through the fields. In 1883, Benjamin Holt produced his first horse-drawn "Link-Belt Combined Harvester". One key innovation Holt implemented was using flexible chain belts rather than gears to transmit power from the ground wheels to the working parts of the machine. Holt Manufacturing made about 130 steam-powered tractors between 1890 and 1904. The steam tractors were extremely heavy, sometimes weighing per horsepower, and often sank into the rich, soft earth of the San Joaquin Valley Delta farmland surrounding Stockton, California. Holt tried to solve the problem by increasing the size and width of the wheels, but this also made the tractors increasingly complex, expensive, and difficult to maintain. One tractor had wheels tall and wide, producing a tractor wide. Holt could spend hours in his private workshop, and experimented by adding multiple wheels and ultimately with a track-laying technique. The center of innovation was in England, and in the same year Holt traveled to England to learn more about ongoing development. Hornsby's design incorporated a steering clutch that varied the speed of each set of wheels, allowing the operator to turn the tractor by retarding one tread or the other. Roberts of Hornsby & Sons obtained a patent for their design in July 1904. By December 1903, Holt wielded considerable influence over former competitors, including Houser-Haines Manufacturing and Mattison-Williamson Works. Holt returned to Stockton and applied his skills and his company's expertise in metallurgy, design, and testing to develop a workable track-laying system. He replaced the wheels on a 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. Pliny E. Holt, the son of Benjamin's half-brother, William Harrison Holt, C. L. Best introduced a crawler tractor in 1913 that was virtually a carbon copy of Holt's design. Holt's tractors had a conventional wheel on the front, which was used to steer, and crawling-type wheels on the back, but otherwise looked very similar to a traction engine. During 1914, both Best and Holt introduced models without the front "tiller" or steering wheel. Holt offered the Caterpillar 45 and Best introduced his C. L. Best Model 40 "Tracklayer". == Patents and trademark disputes ==

Benjamin Holt aggressively defended his patents and was quick to sue anyone he felt might be infringing his rights. In June 1899, he claimed that the Haines-Houser's tractors used certain devices for which Holt held the trademark. Holt sent all farmers who owned Haines-Houser tractors in Yolo County, California, a letter containing a demand that they stop using the competitor's harvesters or face a lawsuit. In the same month he sued William W. Nelson, George W. Bailey, Henry K. Heiken, Hugh A. Logan, William Sullivan, and three other Sullivans for infringement of his patents for "traveling threshers and combined harvesters." The defendants successfully filed a demurrer, getting the suit dismissed 16 months later. Competitors latched onto Holt's litigious nature and warned farmers considering buying his equipment that they might be prosecuted for patent infringement. Holt payment to Best In 1905, a patent infringement lawsuit ensued between Best and Holt. After three years of legal battles, the two companies decided to settle out of court. The parties resolved two suits when Holt made a cash payment to C. L. Best and provided C. L. Best a license giving them access to all Holt patents applying to manufacturing the C. L. Best's "Tracklayers". In 1908, he designed a gasoline engine to power the tractor. Best invalidates Lombard patent In 1915, the C. L. Best Gas Traction Co. exhibited its new "Tracklayer" at the California state fair. Holt once again sued, this time for patent infringement. C. L. Best thought that his best defense was to prove that Holt's patents violated Lombard's patents. One of Best's lawyers, Henry Montgomery, visited Lombard and sought his assistance as a friendly witness. Lombard was more than friendly. He allegedly responded, "By God, young man, I'm glad to see you. If God Almighty could charter me to kill a man, I'd get on the train and go to California and kill old Ben Holt." New Best competitor re-emerges In 1910, Daniel Best's son C. L. Best left the Holt Manufacturing Company where he had been general manager and re-established his father's company under the name C. L. Best Gas Traction Co. in Elmhurst, near San Leandro, California. Holt immediately sued, claiming breach of contract and infringement because as owner of the Best Manufacturing Company, he believed he also owned the "Best" name. Holt did not prevail and Best continued to produce tractors that directly competed with Holt's models. Holt continued to innovate and worked to build a tractor that could perform rugged tasks yet was not itself heavy. He fitted adjustable blades onto his tractors and hired them out to grade roads and move soil and rock for construction purposes. By 1916, Holt had sold over 2,000 tractors worldwide. == Early military uses ==

in use by the French Army in the Vosges during the spring of 1915 In England, starting in 1905, David Roberts of Richard Hornsby & Sons had attempted to interest British military officials in a tracked vehicle, but failed. Holt bought the patents related to the "chain track" track-type tractor from Richard Hornsby & Sons in 1912 for £4,000 (almost £400,000 at 2012 value). Unlike the Holt tractor, which had a steerable tiller wheel in front of the tracks, the Hornsby crawler was steered by controlling power to each track. Holt was more interested in the Hornsby's differential than in its complex track system. being towed by a Holt tractor at the Battle of the Somme, 1916 When World War I broke out, with the problem of trench warfare and the difficulty of transporting supplies to the front, the pulling power of crawling-type tractors drew the attention of the military. Company Vice-President and general manager Pliny Holt had retired and traveled to Washington D.C. to offer his services, and was appointed by , Chief of Ordnance, to serve as chairman of the board organized to handle the production of the "Caterpillar" Artillery program. Representatives of the French company Schneider were also present at the trial, and they ordered a number of Holt's 45 hp model, known as the "Baby", which unlike the 75 and 110 hp models, was fully tracked, with no forward tiller wheel. tractor (s/n 3580) at the Great Dorset Steam Fair, England (2008) The Holt 75 model gasoline-powered tractor was the first "standard" tractor adopted in quantity. Holt vice president Murray M. Baker reported that the tractors weighed about and had . The company could not meet the demand for their tractors and licensed other manufacturers to build their design. Over the next four years, the Holt 75 became a major artillery tractor, mainly used to haul medium guns like the 6-inch howitzer, the 60-pounder, and later the 9.2-inch howitzer. He proposed to Sir Maurice Hankey, Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, that the British build a power-driven, bullet-proof, tracked vehicle that could destroy enemy machine-guns. Holt tractors were "the inspiration for the development of the British tank." The British War Office carried out a rudimentary trial with a Holt tractor. Several key figures in tank development, including J.B.E. Estienne and Joseph Vollmer, were influenced by Holt tractors and investigated the possibilities of tracked fighting vehicles. They decided not to pursue production of the Holt design and instead independently developed the first British tanks. The French also purchased Holts from the US and used them as the basis for their own early tanks, the Schneider and Saint-Chamond. Later in the War, Holt tractors commandeered by the Austro-Hungarian army and loaned to the Germans formed the basis of the German A7V tank. By 1916, about 1,000 Holt 75 tractors were in use by the British in World War I. By the end of the war, the British War Office had received 2,100 Holt tractors, US tank prototypes In Washington, Pliny Holt supervised the design and building of 10 Ton, 5 Ton, and 2.5 Ton artillery tractors based on the Caterpillar crawler tractor design, at the request of the Naval Consulting board, which work was finally completed in conjunction with the engineers of the Westinghouse company. Before the work could be completed, the Armistice was signed and the war ended. A wooden, miniature mockup of an early British tank, powered by a motorcycle engine, was built especially for and showcased in pictures of Colonel Swinton's visit. == See also ==