Caterpillar tractor fans are attracted to Carolina

Caterpillar yellow is the favorite color of many tractor fans from all around the world, and one of the favorite assembly grounds of the Antique Caterpillar Machinery Owners Club (ACMOC) is in Moore County, N.C. 

The Caterpillar enthusiasts are always welcome at the Eder family farm near Carthage. The property is fondly referred to as “Ederville.” 

The ACMOC was founded in 1991 “to appreciate the historic role of Caterpillar machinery in shaping the world and to promote the collection, preservation, restoration, display and study of Caterpillar products and memorabilia.”

 

Caterpillar is a fun word to say and spell, and it’s interesting how the Caterpillar Tractor Company evolved by way of a merger of Californian agricultural titans in 1925. The agreement peacefully brought together two competing – and feuding – tractor and farm implement manufacturers. 

Holt Manufacturing Company of Stockton, Calif., which was established in 1883, was controlled by Benjamin Leroy Holt.

 Benjamin Holt

In 1903, Holt acquired a patent from Alvin Orlando Lombard of Waterville, Maine, for a track-wheeled, log hauler that “revolutionized the movement of harvested logs through the woods,” paving the way, so to speak, for the future of tractors as well as bulldozers, military tanks and snowmobiles. 

About the same time, Richard Hornsby & Sons of Grantham, Lincolnshire, England, developed a different type of a track system, designed for British military vehicles. Trials were conducted by the British Army in 1907, and soldiers watching reportedly said, “the ‘Hornsby crawler’ resembled a bloody caterpillar.” 

Holt promptly acquired Hornsby’s patent and trademarked the name “Caterpillar” in 1910. He believed the name was a perfect description of the way the belted, track-type tractor worked, “creeping along rather than rolling.”

When fields were wet and soggy, farm equipment wheels were ineffective, often sinking in soft soil. The track system dispersed the vehicle’s weight. The Caterpillar tractors demonstrated their value beyond the agricultural environment for use in road building, earthmoving and military operations. 

One military historian wrote: “In World War I, the Caterpillar tractor fought the mud of the Western front, towing equipment for the Allied military forces and was the inspiration for the development of the British tank, which profoundly altered ground warfare tactics.” 

Meanwhile, C. L. Best Gas Traction Company of the San Francisco Bay area was formed by Clarence Leo Best in 1910 as a direct competitor to Holt Manufacturing.

By 1918, the Holt and Best companies had amassed combined legal fees of about $1.5 million – fighting one another. The two businesses competed economically and intellectually. Benjamin Holt and family owned 85 patents, while Leo Best and family had 69. 

Holt Manufacturing was in a bit of a financial scrape when Benjamin Holt died in 1920, at age 71. Thomas F. Baxter, Holt’s general manager since 1914 and a former Boston banker, was selected to succeed Benjamin Holt as president. 

The mediator who ultimately brought the two companies together was Harry H. Fair, a bond broker in San Francisco and a major shareholder with Best. He suggested that Holt and Best “consolidate together, as it was possible that they would both go out of business if they did not,” according to the ACMOC archivist. 

The new company became the Caterpillar Tractor Company in 1925, and Leo Best was elected as CEO. Baxter was dismissed. 

Benjamin Holt was revered for his creative and clever pairing of technology and marketing. Leo Best etched Caterpillar yellow into America’s industrial hall of fame as early as 1931.