Industry History | Caterpillar — The Colean Yard on Washington Street, East Peoria
· 1925-4
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Industry History | Caterpillar — The Colean Yard on Washington Street, East Peoria
kevin
People treat Caterpillar as an Irving tower that arrived already named CAT yellow.
The company that still builds track-type tractors here was formed on 15 April 1925, when Holt Manufacturing and C. L. Best Tractor combined as Caterpillar Tractor Co.
The East Peoria pin is older than the merger.
In late 1909 Pliny Holt, nephew of Benjamin Holt, took the bankrupt Colean steam-tractor works on this side of the Illinois River.
Holt Caterpillar Company was incorporated on 12 January 1910.
The deed to the four-building plant passed on 16 February 1910.
Twelve men started work the same day, because orders were already waiting and the Minneapolis machinery arrived by rail that afternoon.
Holt had the Caterpillar trademark and the wartime reputation.
Best had the stronger balance sheet.
Bankers who held Holt debt pushed the consolidation in April and May 1925.
San Leandro, California, was the first paper headquarters.
East Peoria was the factory that kept running.
Under the merger terms the head office moved here in 1930.
The mechanism was the track.
Wheel tractors sank in California delta peat and Illinois mud.
A continuous tread spread the weight.
After the merger the new firm kept five models: Holt's 2-Ton, 5-Ton and 10-Ton, and Best's 30 and 60.
The address that still carries the plant is 901 West Washington Street.
The original administration facade was later rebuilt as a break-room entrance inside Building SS at 450 Tractor Drive.
The pin is the public Washington Street frontage.
The floors inside are an active works.
Photo: the Holt Caterpillar factory in East Peoria, March 1910, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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