I thought your readers might like to meet a veteran from the sales, dealer and manufacturing end. I refer to Murray M. Baker of Peoria, who was breezing past his 80th birthday and visiting his dentist with orders to “fix them up for another ten years” when I interviewed him at his beautiful home up on the “Arrived” side of Moss Avenue when I was back in the Corn Belt recently.
Mr. Baker is the man who is today the biggest stockholder in Caterpillar Tractor Co. and was the big influence in bringing it to Peoria when the California firm decided the automobile had started a road-building trend that called for their tractors to get over near the center of the market.
That was back in 1909, the same year the Holts sold the Los Angeles Aqueduct engineers 28 Caterpillars to haul the materials and equipment over mountains and desert to southern California on the biggest water development of any city up to that time. Hence, the engineering world was full of talk of the Holt “Caterpillar” at that time, and the Holts were beginning to get orders from all over the world.
Colean failure sets the stage for important acquisition
I found Mr. Baker as keen and bright as I had known him 25 years earlier. His basement office runs clear across the house with filing cabinets
