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This plant was an ancestor of the giant machinery manufacturer, Caterpillar, Incorporated, later based in Peoria, IL; the Holt Manufacturing Company, the successor to the Stockton Wheel Service, was the first company to develop the continuous track tractor. The firm started by inventor/industrialist Benjamin L. Holt (1849-1920) merged with the San Leandro, CA-based C. L. Best Tractor Company in 1925 to form Caterpillar. Holt migrated from his native Concord, NH, to Stockton, CA, to expand his family's sawmill, wagon-building and woodworking business; a brother, Charles H. Holt had been the first of the family to set up a West Coast operation, fabricating wooden wagon wheels in San Francisco, CA in 1864; he was joined by brothers Harrison and Ames in 1871. In 1883, Benjamin and his three brothers pooled $65,000 to form the Stockton Wheel Service, which specialized in producing hardwood wheels that were resistant to cracking in the dry climate of the San Joaquin Valley. The Stockton Wheel Service employed 25 people in 1883 in a three-story brick factory and one-story wood-frame manufacturing building in Stockton. The invention that grew Stockton Wheel's business was the Link Belt Combined Harvester (developed by 1885), a machine that cut and threshed wheat twice as fast as the previous two-stage process. Further growth occurred when Holt's firm began to substitute steam powered engines for large horse-drawn teams. In 1892, as the company's business began to expand after the introduction of steam power, the firm renamed itself the "Holt Manufacturing Company."

PCAD id: 16970