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Caterpillar Turns 100
PEORIA, Ill. (AP) -- Caterpillar helps to put the Peoria area on the financial map but it might not ever have come to town if it weren't for a young local businessman with an idea.

Caterpillar archivist Nicole Thaxton says Murray Baker heard that a California firm called Holt Manufacturing was looking to set up a shop further east.

Holt was eyeing Minneapolis. But Baker suggested a bankrupt Peoria tractor plant that Holt checked out and liked.

Holt took the deed to the plant on Feb. 16, 1910, and started work right away.

A group of California investors bought Holt and another manufacturer in 1925, and it merged them into Caterpillar Tractor Co.

Today, Peoria-based Cat employs 90,000 people all over the world. And the company had $32.4 billion in revenue last year.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
02 16 10 by Newsroom
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