PEORIA, Ill. – An iconic Peoria company is celebrating a century of business on Tuesday.
April 15th, 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of Caterpillar. The company was formed in 1925 C.L. Best and Benjamin Holt merged their separate companies to form CAT.
CAT Archivist Katie Potempa tells WMBD’s “Greg and Dan” that Best and Holt used to be rivals with their companies. But the tide changed after World War I.
“Holt was losing market share after the war ended, and Best wanted to expand. And so both companies came together, even though they were fierce rivals,” Potempa said.
Potempa says both Best and Holt were based in northern California, and both companies made agriculture equipment. Holt came to Peoria in 1909. During the first World War, Holt’s company was six times bigger than Best’s company, and had won the contracts to supply tractors for the war effort.
But Potempa says Holt’s lost a lot of market share after the war, while Best’s company won the domestic markets for food production. The pair came together when Best wanted to expand his company.
Potempa says the Caterpillar name comes from some of Holt’s former tractors that he was testing, and a photographer noticed the way the wheels moved.
For some, Caterpillar is a family affair. Joel Feucht is Cat’s Large Power Systems Division Vice President, and is a part of a family of five generations who have worked at Cat.
Feucht says his great-grandfather started at Caterpillar in 1926, but his history goes further back than that.
“At the behest of his brother-in-law, who came in really before Holt, he came with the Colean Company Holt bought in 1909,” Feucht said. “Hundred years ago, he was credited with 16 years of service before Cat even started.”
Feucht says his great-grandfather built tractors in East Peoria, and his grandfather joined working on castings in 1935 at the suggestion of Murray Baker. He says another grandfather was a machinist, his father was one of the first engineers at the technical center in Mossville, and his son has worked for Cat for around 10 years.
Caterpillar is celebrating 100 years with free admission to its downtown Peoria Visitor’s Center, and the announcement of a new exhibit focused on construction technology.
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