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 an 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 and desk neatly arranged to permit his keen mind and nimble fingers to locate the answers in documents and publications as fast as I asked questions. What about catalogs on these old steam threshing engines he had handled? He came up with the smaller price lists for the Aultman Co. for 1900, 1902 and 1904; Buffalo Pitts Co. for 1904, 1905, 1906 and 1908; Colean Mfg. Co., 1904; Reeves & Co., 1900; M. Rumely, 1906.
The walls of the Baker basement office were covered with reminders of a busy life that spanned achievements in rough fields that had laid the groundwork for the modern miracle of U.S. mechanism that lifted a nation to the position of Conqueror of Hunger in an under-nourished world that has been half-starved throughout history. There were local, company and national tributes to a man who had done things in the business and industrial world in the traditional free enterprise manner of keen competition and service based on business methods to serve the public with more efficient tools to produce food, fiber and do heavy construction work more efficiently.
“Peoria, because of its location and its railroad and river facilities, became one of the most important manufacturing and distributing centers of farm machinery in the country. Avery Co. had built up a tremendous business in the manufacture of engines and threshing machines. Kingman Plow Co., Acme Harvester Co., Herschel Mfg. Co., Ide Bicycle Works, Bartholemew Co., Banker Buggy Co., Hart Grain Weigher Co., were all located here and busy at the turn of the century. There was a number of very substantial jobbers and many branch houses, representing the best lines of farm machinery, located here, and every available office and showroom space along Water Street from one end to the other, was occupied by the manufacturers of steam traction engines, threshing machines and similar equipment.
“With the exception of Herschel, all of these concerns are now out of existence. Among the first to fold was the Colean Co. In 1908, their financial difficulties became known to those in close touch with their operations and because of my former association with Mr. Colean, I was interested in what then seemed to be a forerunner of their collapse. In a relatively short time, a Creditors Committee was appointed, of which Mr. Walter Barker, president of the Commercial German Bank, was selected as chairman.
“Mr. Barker had been helpful to me in the past, both in my warehouse and farm machinery business, and it was through him that I commenced negotiations for purchase of the Colean plant in case it was to be sold. The final purchase was completed the following year through the payment of the principal and accrued interest on the mortgage bonds then outstanding.
Birth of the Holt Caterpillar Tractor Co.
“My first contact with Holt Mfg. Co. was in March 1909, when I had written to them concerning a dealership contract for their combined harvesters in our Illinois territory.
I was informed that because of our climatic conditions the harvesting of grain in this fashion could not be recommended.
“After the failure of the Aultman Co., and the completion of my business relations with them, I entered into a dealership contract with Buffalo Pitts Co. covering their full line of steam traction engines, threshers, road machinery and allied equipment. Buffalo Pitts Co. had interests on the West Coast. In conversation with John Olmsted, secretary of the company, he told me that he was soon leaving for San Francisco on business. He had known the Colean company as a competitor whose product was almost a copy of their line and also that I was at that time negotiating for the purchase of their defunct plant.
“The establishment of an eastern plant was of necessity one of the new Holt organization’s first considerations and when Mr. Olmsted informed Parker Holt of the possible availability of the Colean plant, he passed the information on to Pliny Holt. Mr. Holt then was interested in a proposal of the Chamber of Commerce of Stillwater, Minnesota, concerning a plant there. Mr. Holt arrived in Peoria Sunday noon, July 25, 1909. He and I went over the Colean plant and he appeared favorably impressed. With the cooperation of a group of local business friends, I formed a committee and we proceeded to bring the matter to an early conclusion.
“In the meantime, my own business was running smoothly and with a dependable organization, I found it possible to spend considerable time in the completion of the necessary details in connection with the purchase of the Colean plant and the formation of an operating organization. We proceeded to incorporate a new company. After much discussion as to a name and the urge that I become an active partner, it was finally agreed to be Holt Caterpillar Tractor Co., entirely separate and independent of the Holt Mfg. Co. of California. The sample Caterpillar was assembled in Minneapolis and was shipped to Peoria, where it created much interest among the old-fashioned steam traction advocates. Pliny Holt shipped his personal effects to Peoria. J.B. Hatten, a very able shop man, together with Emil Norelius, both young engineers, followed and were given office and shop facilities at my place pending occupancy of the farmer Colean plant.
Executive vice president of “the Peoria project”
“Pliny Holt was to supply one-half the capital and I was to supply the balance. It, however, developed that Holt’s money was not forthcoming. Parker Holt, manager of the California Holt company, then decided to come to Peoria to look the proposition over and insisted the Peoria organization be made an eastern branch of the California company. Benjamin Holt, president of his company, then came out and the matter was settled accordingly. I was not interested in the Holt family affairs and made up my mind to attend to my own business. However, I did spend much time with the new company in East Peoria and supplied materials and cash for current needs during the formation period.
“The directors of the parent organization became increasingly insistent that I take over the management of the new company. I therefore proceeded to liquidate my other business affairs and became executive vice president of the Peoria project.
“I was to have the privilege of purchasing sufficient common stock of the Holt Mfg. Co., to equal the interest of others except Benjamin Holt, and entered into an employment contract and purchase agreement for common stock accordingly. There was no bonus stock, cash bonus or other consideration even contemplated in the procurement of the Colean plant and equipment by me, as some had assumed. The common stock I purchased at that time I still hold, which, I feel, is an expression of my everlasting faith in the company and its products.”
Experience as a supplement to ambition
As the visitor picked up his hat and notebook to bid the youthful octogenarian goodbye, he casually handed him two pictures. One showed him as a younger man, swinging a scythe at the Illinois Threshermen’s picnic some 30 years earlier. The other was a recent portrait of M.M. Baker, director of a tractor company that got its start on hay burners and steam power and rose to top rating in the world of off-road power of farm, logger, dirt mover and warrior.
“For three generations, the men of our family had invariably chosen the legal profession or followed a military career,” began Mr. Baker. “My observations did not indicate that either offered a very remunerative return at that time, which prompted me to seek means for a livelihood other than planned for me by my elders. Farming, farm machinery, livestock and other outdoor activities offered an overwhelming interest.
“Following completion of my schooling, I went to work for a local concern that sold steam traction engines, threshing machines and farm implements, which led to a position with the St. Louis branch of John Deere, who at that time sold through their dealers the same line of machinery with which I was familiar. I was later employed as district representative in Illinois for P.P. Mast & Co., established manufacturers of a popular line. This contact with their dealers and customers on sales, service and promotional work afforded me a most valuable experience, when I needed experience very much, to supplement ambition.
Establishing a dealership
“In 1896, I entered the Aultman Co., as an assistant to mid-western manager, Aaron O. Auten. My duties were varied, mostly sales, collections and secretarial services to the manager. Through a drastic change in the policy of Aultman Co., each of their branches was required to incorporate as independent organizations and continue under dealership contracts. The Chicago branch was incorporated as Western Supply Co., with capital of $30,000. I was elected as director and secretary.
“The new organization took over the Chicago and Peoria offices and inventories of machinery and parts and made settlement with Aultman & Co., in cash and renewable notes for the balance and proceeded to operate independently. Shipments thereafter to the new company were settled for under their dealership contract by notes, redeemable either by customers’ three-year paper, without recourse, or cash, according to the terms upon which the equipment was sold. If by notes, the settlement basis was 35 percent from list price. If in cash, an additional 10 percent was granted. This method of financing later proved to be disastrous to the Aultman Co., though profitable to their dealers.
“Mr. William H. Colean, manager of the Peoria branch and warehouse for several years, tendered his resignation to the new company in 1898. In association with others, Mr. Colean organized the Colean Mfg. Co., for the manufacture of a competitive line of traction engines and threshing machines and built a factory and office building in East Peoria. I came to Peoria in January 1900, following Mr. Colean’s resignation, to assume management of our Peoria branch. My first undertaking was to acquire a term lease and purchase option on a four-story warehouse building between the Rock Island tracks and the river. I then incorporated The Illinois Warehouse Co.
“Our principal warehouse business was with implement and machinery concerns whose practice was to continue to manufacture during the out-of-season period and warehouse surplus stocks at strategic points for re-shipment to dealers during the selling season. Peoria was the central point for a wide territory and we had all of the transfer business we could handle, which also included repair stocks.
“By 1903, the financial plan employed by the Aultman Co. was not working out as planned and the appointment of a receiver followed. The Western Supply Co., after their settlement with the receiver, withdrew from this territory. I resigned my connection with them and I proceeded, in 1904, to incorporate a dealership of my own under the name of M.M. Baker & Co., taking over all of the assets of Western Supply Co., in Peoria. The receiver for Aultman Co. turned over, under a very liberal agreement, a large inventory of machinery parts and equipment in Illinois, which, with the cooperation of our local banks, we were able to sell that year to good advantage.
“When automobiles came into the picture, we secured the Maxwell and Packard agencies and established the first automobile sales and service establishment in Peoria.” FC
Read more about F. Hal Higgins’s Interview with Murray M. Baker