One of Caterpillar Inc.'s Founding Fathers Inducted Into Inventor Hall of Fame

PEORIA, Ill., Feb. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- One of Caterpillar Inc.'s (NYSE: CAT - News) founding fathers is being recognized for his ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit with induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. At a news conference today in Washington, D.C., the Hall of Fame announced it is posthumously honoring Benjamin Holt for ushering in the modern era of mechanized farming and construction with his "Traction Engine" (Patent #874,008).

Holt's invention was inspired by the plight of California farmers who found wheels ineffective in preventing heavy equipment from sinking into the soft, muddy soil. Holt designed a track-laying system to disperse weight and provide better traction, producing in 1904 the prototype of the first practical track-type tractor. The photographer who documented one of its first successful tests dubbed the machine the "caterpillar," inspiring the company name and launching the Caterpillar brand that has developed a global reputation for quality and rugged durability.

The Holt Manufacturing Company merged with competitor C. L. Best Tractor Co. in 1925, forming the Caterpillar Tractor Co., predecessor to modern-day Caterpillar Inc. Both founding families set in place the tradition of innovation that continues today. Benjamin Holt achieved 47 patents in his name; his nephew Pliny Holt had 38 patents. Fellow Caterpillar Inc. founders Daniel Best had 42 patents and his son C. L. Best, the first chairman of Caterpillar, had 27 patents. Some of C. L. Best's patents reflect inventions he refined during his tenure as chairman as he continued to innovate while leading the successful company.

Used extensively by the U.S., French, and British armies in World War I and World War II, the track-type tractor was used to haul men and supplies across the battlefield. From 1914 to 1918, 10,000 Caterpillar tractors were made by The Holt Manufacturing Company and other licensed manufacturers for use in the war. It was one of the inspirations for the design of the British tank, which profoundly altered ground warfare tactics. At the end of World War II, Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, Commander, Third Fleet, touted, "The four machines that won the war in the Pacific were the submarine, radar, the airplane and the tractor-bulldozer."

For more than 80 years, Caterpillar Inc. has been building the world's infrastructure and, in partnership with its worldwide dealer network, is driving positive and sustainable change on every continent. With 2005 sales and revenues of $36.33 billion, Caterpillar is a technology leader and the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines. More information is available at http://www.cat.com .

I love this..This happened several years ago but the church is now just voting to sell it off..Culd it be that CAT stock is at an all tiem high and has more then tripled in value over the past 4 years and they wanted to cash in profits? "Ethical" reasons LOL

Church votes to sell off shares in Caterpillar

Stephen Bates, religious affairs correspondent Tuesday February 7, 2006 The Guardian

The Church of England's general synod - including the Archbishop of Canterbury - voted last night to disinvest church funds from companies profiting from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. The main target of the plan will be the US earth-moving equipment company Caterpillar which has supplied vehicles used by Israel to demolish Palestinian homes. When the worldwide Anglican communion called for such a move, at a meeting last summer, there followed protests from Israel and Jewish groups. The church currently invests about £2.5m of its £900m share portfolio in Caterpillar and had been engaged in negotiations with the company about its activities. Caterpillar insists it has not provided the earth movers directly to Israel but to the US military which sold them on.

So passionate was the debate that it squeezed out an equally contentious decision last Friday by the Church commissioners, managers of the church's investment and property portfolio, to sell off the century-old Octavia Hill housing estates for more than 1,000 poor tenants in south London to property developers.

On the first day of its meeting in London, the general synod, the church's parliament, heard denunciations of Israel's use of the machines from one of its own bishops and from the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, who is Palestinian, whose letter was read out.

The Rt Rev John Gladwin, Bishop of Chelmsford, who is chairman of Christian Aid, told the meeting that the problem in the Middle East was the government of Israel rather than Caterpillar but that it was vital that the church should invest only in organisations which behaved ethically.

"Holt invented the tracks, but he also set the standard for innovation and quality that all of Team Caterpillar aspires to in 2006 and beyond," said Robert T. Williams, Caterpillar vice president with responsibility for the company's flagship Track-Type Tractors Division.

Uh, maybe not. I discovered this bit on Wikipedia in 2004 when I was doing research for an article on the 100th anniversary of the crawler tractor.

An effective caterpillar track was invented and implemented by Alvin Lombard, for the Lombard steam log hauler. He was granted a patent in 1901. He built the first steam-powered log hauler at the Waterville Iron Works in Waterville, Maine the same year. In all, eighty-three Lombard steam log haulers are known to have been built up to 1917 when production switched entirely to internal combustion engine powered machines ending with a Fairbanks diesel powered unit in 1934, yet undoubtedly Lombard was the first commercial manufacturer of the crawler tractor. In addition, there may have been up to twice as many Phoenix "Centipeed" versions of the steam log hauler built under license from Lombard, with vertical instead of horizontal cylinders. In 1903, the founder of the Holt Manufacturing, Benjamin Holt, paid Lombard $60,000 so they could produce vehicles under his patent. Their seems to have been an agreement made after Lombard travelled out to CA, but some discrepancy as to how this matter was resolved when previous track patents were studied. Popularly, everyone claimed to have been inspired by the "dog tread mill" once used on farms to power the butter churn, etc. to "invent" the crawler on their own, and the more recent the history, the earlier this date of "invention" seems to get. At about the same time a British agricultural company Hornsby based in Grantham, in the United Kingdom developed a caterpillar track which was patented in 1905. The design differed from modern tracks in that it flexed in only one direction with the effect that the links locked together to form a solid rail on which the road wheels ran. Hornsby's tracked vehicles were used as artillery tractors by the British Army from 1906. Their patent was also purchased by Holt. The Hornsby tractors featured the track-steer clutch arrangement which is the basis of the modern crawler operation, and some say an observing British soldier quipped that it crawled like a "caterpillar". What is known is that caterpillar became a generic term for this type of machine. The word was shrewdly trademarked and defended by Holt).

I worked for a Cat subsidiary for awhile. Little did I know back in the 50's and 60's when I originally read the stories in the Saturday Evening Post how much deja vu I would experience later.

Though, in some instances, the stories were some 60 or 70 years old, it was absolutely amazing how many of the themes were still operative.

Especially the part where he hauls tractors to the Ukraine in the late 20's and when during the demonstration they caught fire. He had to spend the night fixing them and wondering how the engineers at the factory couldn't get simple things right.

This was still a problem in the 90's.

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