science · 05 December 1920 · 104 years ago
death
Died 5 Dec 1920 at age 71 (born 1 Jan 1849).
American inventor of the crawler track (1904) in the form of an endless chain tread for his steam traction engine. The Caterpillar name resulted when a man photographing one of Holt's track-laying vehicles viewed the motion of the track as it travelled and said it reminded him of a caterpillar. Holt liked it as a nickname, and began using the name for his crawler track. Some years later, when his company merged with another manufacturer, Caterpillar was first used in the company name.
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