A Short History of Half-tracks
While it isn’t possible to fully cover the history of half-tracks within the space of a few pages, this article will attempt to provide a basic primer.
Many people think half-tracks were invented as military machines during World War II. Similarly, many people think someone named “Caterpillar” invented half-tracks. Even if one is aware that the Caterpillar tractor was actually developed (though not invented) by Benjamin Holt and C.L. Best — two men who were competitors in the early days of track-laying tractors — one might be surprised to learn that the Caterpillar Tractor Company had little to do with half-tracks. Indeed, “Mr. Caterpillar” (Benjamin Holt) disliked the half-track concept; and two other men, Alvin Lombard and Holman Linn, were largely responsible for Holt’s negative feelings… more on that later.
The biggest surprise may be that the half-track, not the full-tracked “Caterpillar,” was the first practical track-laying vehicle. Although there is some evidence that a steam-powered tracked vehicle was designed in the U.S. during the 1860s, it was apparently never actually built; and the first practical half-track was invented, not during WWII, or even during the First World War, but in the 1890s by a man named Alvin Lombard.
Half-track vehicles were being built and used in civilian applications many years before World War One, and production and usage increased dramatically between the two world wars. Perhaps not surprisingly, the half-track was first invented to meet the needs of the lumber industry. In the late 1800s, most commercial lumbering in the U.S. was limited to cutting timber that grew close enough to rivers to allow it to be floated to a sawmill. However, as the nation’s demand
