page_title: Holt Manufacturing Company
section_title: Gasoline engines
hierarchical_section_title: Holt Manufacturing Company / Tractor design / Gasoline engines
caption_attribution_description: English: A Holt 60-horsepower, four-cylinder valve-in-head gasoline Caterpillar tractor number 524 from 1912, shortly after being purchased in 1914. The tractor was restored in the late 1960s and is the oldest surviving East Peoria-built tractor known to exist. This tractor is also owned by the original purchasing family
context_page_description: The Holt Manufacturing Company began with the 1883 founding of Stockton Wheel Service in Stockton, California, United States. Benjamin Holt, later credited with patenting the first workable crawler tractor design, incorporated the Holt Manufacturing Company in 1892. Holt Manufacturing Company was the first company to successfully manufacture a continuous track tractor By the early 20th century, Holt Manufacturing Company was the leading manufacturer of combine harvesters in the US, and the leading California-based manufacturer of steam traction engines.
  Holt Manufacturing Company operated from Stockton, California, until opening a satellite facility in Walla Walla, Washington, to serve the Pacific Northwest. In 1909 Holt Manufacturing Company expanded by purchasing the facility of defunct farm implement maker Colean Manufacturing Company in East Peoria, Illinois. Holt changed the name of the company to Holt Caterpillar Company, although he did not trademark the name Caterpillar until 1910.
  The company's initial products focused on agricultural machinery and were distributed internationally. During World War I, almost all of its production was military materiel.
context_section_description: Pliny E. Holt, the son of Benjamin's half-brother, William Harrison Holt, had been working with Stockton Wheel Company for the past nine years. In 1906, he was named president of the newly formed Aurora Engine Company, named after Aurora Street in Stockton where it was located. The new company manufactured gasoline engines to replace the large, heavy steam boilers used to power the earlier Holt tractors. A gasoline engine considerably reduced the overall size and weight of a tractor, produced more power per pound of weight, and reduced the tractor's cost, making it more cost-effective and affordable. Holt's most popular gasoline engine tractor was a Model 75, weighing 24,000 pounds (11,000 kg) with a 75 horsepower (56 kW) engine. Pliny was also treasurer of another subsidiary, the Houser and Haines Manufacturing Company of Stockton, from 1905–09.
  As well as having a better power-to-weight ratio, a gasoline-engined tractor required fewer men to operate it. Competing steam engines typically required a crew of seven, including one highly skilled and well-paid, licensed "farm engineer". He was responsible for rising in the middle of the night to start the boiler fire to get up steam by first light. Steam traction boilers had a huge need for water and fuel, either coal or wood. Much of the seven-man crew's time was spent keeping it fueled.
caption: A Holt 60-horsepower, four-cylinder valve-in-head gasoline Caterpillar (s/n 524) in 1912. The tractor was restored in the late 1960s and is the oldest surviving East Peoria-built tractor known to exist.[41]
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