Caterpillar Tractor Company

Holt Manufacturing Company was started in 1892 and produced crawler tractors called Caterpillars. Best Manufacturing Company began making crawlers called Tracklayers in 1904. In 1925, these two companies merged and changed the world of crawler tractors forever. The decision was made to use the trademarked Caterpillar name for their new venture. This new company soon purchased the Russell Grader Company and Caterpillar then had its own line of graders. Cat was the first company to power a crawler with a diesel engine. It was also the first company to use only diesel engines in their entire line. Caterpillar is still the most dominant manufacturer of crawler tractors and they continue to lead the construction industry. In the 1987, Caterpillar introduced the world’ s first farm tractor equipped with rubber tracks, in 2002 the tractor line was acquired by AGCO Corporation. In the mid 1990’ s Caterpillar decided to return to the combine business and expand its agricultural division by introducing a state-of-the-art combine to the North American market. Caterpillar teamed up with German combine producer Claas to create the Lexion line of combines, this resulted in a joint company called Caterpillar-Claas America, LLC.