Caterpillar Inc, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of construction and mining equipment, natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines and is leading global supplier of diesel engines.
Although it is headquartered in the relatively small city of Peoria, Illinois, it is clearly a global enterprise.
The Caterpillar was first used to refer to a Holt machine in March 1905, Holt photographer Charles Clements exclaimed in awe when he saw new form of propulsion, ‘if that don’t look like a monster caterpillar’.
After developing his images, Clements marked the first set of negative ‘Caterpillar’. The name then adopted as Holt’s trademark and was registered as such with the US patent Office in 1910.
On April 15, 1925 the Holt Manufacturing Company merged with CL Best Tractor Co. and became Caterpillar Tractor Co. In 1986, the company’s name was change to Caterpillar Inc.
The history of Caterpillar dates back to the late nineteenth century, when Daniel Best and Benjamin Holt tried to make steam tractors for farming.
Prior to establishing Caterpillar in 1925, Best and Holt pioneered track-type tractors and petrol powered tractor engines.
Both had experimented, to varying degrees of success with track-laying technologies.
Holt was refining track-laying for soft peat areas of agriculture land and Best was developing the technology for woodland logging operations where steep inclines and very soft soil call for the high flotation of tracks.
Caterpillar pursued the farm tractor market in the 1920s and 1930s with models ranging in power from two-up to six-plow ratings.
In 1931 the first Diesel Sixty Tractor was manufactured, and the company continued to expand its product line to include more graders, blade graders, elevating graders, terracers and electric generator sets.
During the 1950s, the company’s tractors were know more as heavy-construction, earthmoving machines and less as agricultural tools.
Off highway trucks were added in the 1960s, hydraulic excavators in the 1970s, and rubber-tracked agricultural tractors in the 1980s.
In 2008, about two thirds of sales were outside the United States, and exports from the United States to other countries totaled $16 billion.
History of Caterpillar Inc
