Uberlandwagen 1:48

[John Wagenseil]

The Holt tractor factory (See above post) surrounded the Church Street and Aurora Street intersection in Stockton, California
https://calisphere.org/item/ee04cc22...58f14962f45e6/

The old factory site is now mostly a post industrial waste land, and as Whulsey can tell you it is not a good idea to go wandering around Central California towns unless you fully understand the area and its risks very well.
The only remaining buildings from the Holt days are the company fire engine house, on the west side of Aurora Street, mid way between Church and Hazeltine.
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.9491...7i16384!8i8192
It is now in falling down condition, when I lived in Stockton almost 30 years ago, the building was still being kept up.

The back brick walls of the Hixco warehouse on the SE corner of Hazeltine and Aurora might be from a Holt building.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/E+...4d-121.2780326

The imposing Holt company offices on Church Street are long gone. They are in the background of the picture showing the Holt " minitank " and General Swinton.
https://s7d2.scene7.com/is/image/Cat...28-54364-29167
Benjamin Holt's house was located a few blocks away from his factory, close enough so that he could walk to it (he was very frugal) and make sure that everything was going well. The building had been used as an attorney's office and a half way house.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Holt_House
Holt eventually merged with Best to create the Caterpillar Company. For many years, Holt and Best had been bitter rivals engaged in patent infringement law suites.

For what it is worth, there was a junk yard in south central Stockton that had a mammoth heap of old tires. The tires were hauled away in the early 1970's revealing a long forgotten 3 truck Shay locomotive.
https://sierraloggingmuseum.org/shay...y-of-ysl-no-4/


PS
A video of large holt machines and a few shots of the Stockton Holt factory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEFktbuYuXw

[whulsey]

John is pretty close to the mark about Central California. Still trying to sort out some of the fallout from that.

Here's a couple of Holt tractors from the Hays Truck & Heidrick Ag Museum in Woodland (just nw of Sacramento past the airport). If I remember correctly the 120HP was shipped to France right at the end of the war, so got shipped back and worked on the docks for many years. The armored one had a great comment on how the engine and radiator were armored, but the driver set out in the open.

Not sure if they're still there since a few years ago the Truck part moved out and was going to relocate to Reno by the National Automotive Museum (Harrah's). They moved but money ran out. The Ag Museum took over the truck building and expanded their collection so that part is going good. Think the crawlers stayed with it since that's were Holt and Best got that start was with ag crawlers.

[CharlieC]

Not sure whether anyone would be interested but the original manuals for the Holt 5- and 10-ton artillery tractors are available at:

https://www.radionerds.com/images/7/...rm_no.1996.pdf

https://www.radionerds.com/images/9/...ry_Tractor.pdf

There were 1543 5-ton and 1421 10-ton tractors (all made in Stockton, CA) accepted before the Armistice - about half of these made it to France before the end of WW1.

As an aside there's lots written about how the USA organised industry in WW2 to outproduce all the Axis powers. A very similar thing happened in WW1 - it's mostly forgotten because the USA was only in the war for about 18 months and the full effect of its armament production wasn't seen.

Regards,

Charlie

[Tim Crowe]

Charlie

Thank you for posting the manuals

Tim

[at6]

I live in Central Cal and it is not for the faint of heart. Many areas have become quite hazardous to your health. There are parts of Fresno that I avoid like the plague.

[whulsey]

Charlie, great site for manuals and photos. Has a bunch of truck stuff that looks really interesting.

[John Wagenseil]

Originally Posted by at6

I live in Central Cal and it is not for the faint of heart. Many areas have become quite hazardous to your health. There are parts of Fresno that I avoid like the plague.

Do they burn off rice fields down at your end of the Valley, that was something that was really a yearly health hazard.

[at6]

I don't think that is done very much anymore. We never had rice fields down here as I recall. Rice fields were more toward Sacramento and the Delta. They did burn grain fields after the harvest but air quality regulations restrict ag burns.