100 Years on Tracks

The oldest surviving Holt track-type tractor, 25 HP 1908 No. 1004 (top), and Tom Madden's circa-1917 Holt experimental No. 11679.

2004 Tulare Antique Farm Equipment Show Celebrates 100 Years of Tracked Tractors

By Richard Backus
Photographs by Floyd Schmall

By 1904, Holt steam traction engines had been working the California landscape for 14 years. Employed for freighting and farming duties, Holt steamers found a ready market in California's booming agricultural industry. Crop farmers in the state embraced the revolution in mechanized farming, but the soft soil endemic to large tracts of California's agricultural land proved difficult for the large and heavy machines to navigate, even with oversized drivers fitted to provide floatation. Intent on overcoming this obstacle, Benjamin Holt, president of The Holt Manufacturing Co., Stockton, Calif., had been looking for a suitable solution.  

On Nov. 24, 1904, Holt began testing a modified version of the company's 40 HP Junior steam traction engine. In place of the standard set of rear drivers, Holt's test mule, Holt No. 77, was instead equipped with a set of linked tracks faced with wood-block treads. Holt ran No. 77 through a series of trials on land outside of Stockton, and satisfied with the results, Holt embarked on a course of mechanical development that ultimately changed the face of agricultural and construction mechanization. The age of tracked tractors was born.

Fast-forward to 2003, and Holt's tracked machine, the “Caterpillar” (a term coined by a company photographer in 1905), was almost 100 years old. Although heavily developed and improved, the basic mechanical foundation Holt laid out in 1904 ultimately built an empire in the form of Caterpillar Inc., Peoria, Ill., the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment. Fifteen hundred miles away in California where it all began, a small group of collectors and restorers started planning a celebration of Holt's singular contribution to the mechanization of America.

100 ..pillar Co., with headquarters at its new plant in Peoria. Manufacturing also continued in Holt's old plant in Stockton.

Best Manufacturing Co.

In 1889, Daniel Best's The Best Manufacturing Co., San Leandro, Calif., introduced its first steam-traction engine. Based on Marquis de Lafayette's “Rough and Ready” steam traction engine of 1885, the 50 HP Best found immediate favor, and by 1897 the company offered a powerful 110 HP steam traction engine capable of pulling the ever larger combines Best also manufactured.

Best and Holt competed head-to-head for California's market in steamers and combines. According to Orlemann, in 1905, Best filed suit against Holt for infringing Best's patented power take-off design. The suit was wrapped up in the courts for the next three years, and before it could be settled, Best sold his business to Holt in 1908. Terms of the sale included the provision that Best's son, Clarence Leo Best, be named president of Holt's San Leandro facilities. The purchase of Best gave Holt a virtual lock on the lucrative California tractor and combine market, at least in terms of local manufacture and supply.

C.L. Best Gas Traction Co.

In 1910, Clarence Leo Best left Holt and established the C.L. Best Gas Traction Co. in Elmhurst, Calif. The company manufactured traditional wheel-type tractors at first, but in 1912 introduced its own track-type tractor, the 70 HP Tracklayer.

Caterpillar Tractor Co.

The fortunes of Holt and C.L. Best grew rapidly, and once again the Holt and Best names vied for market supremacy. During World War I, Holt landed contracts to supply tractors to the U.S. government. When the war ended in 1918, so did government orders for Holt machines, and Holt found itself scrambling to shift from a military to a civilian market.

Best, on the other hand, was suffering from the explosion in tractor manufacturers and the subsequent competition in the tractor market. In 1925, the Holt Manufacturing Co. and the C.L. Best Gas Traction Co. merged, forming the Caterpillar Tractor Co., Peoria, Ill. The rest, as they say, is history.

Resources

To learn more about the history of Caterpillar tractors, check out Eric C. Orlemann's Caterpillar Chronicle: The History of the World's Greatest Earthmovers, or his recently released The Caterpillar Century, honoring 100 years of Caterpillar. Also check out Bob LaVoie's photo archives, Caterpillar Ten Photo Archive and Caterpillar D-8 1933-74 Photo Archive, Including Diesel 75 and RD-8.

Visit our Web site www.GasEngineMagazine.com and click “books,” or call (866) 803-7096 to order these titles.