San Leandro Plant Shuts After 99 Years : First Home of Caterpillar Tractor Closes Doors
Workers at the original home of Caterpillar Tractor Co., closing down after 99 years as part of a $225-million consolidation plan by the financially ailing company, once said proudly that they had “yellow paint in their veins.”
Production workers stopped making fuel injection systems two weeks ago, and finished their last day on the job Friday. Now, only a cleanup crew remains to dismantle an important part of the city’s history.
“It’ll be all closed down and buttoned up sometime in August,” said Kent Ryden, the plant’s labor relations manager.
Only 50 workers are left from a 1979 work force of 2,000. Only crates remain at a once-bustling plant opened by a young sharpshooter named Daniel Best.
“I think it’s the end of an era,” said Quince Galloway of San Leandro, who is married to Best’s granddaughter, Janis. “At one time, almost everybody worked at Best’s tractor company or knew somebody who did.”
“I regret seeing it close,” said Alan Parry, 74, who went to work at Best’s tractor plant as an apprentice in 1928, earning $9.90 for a 44-hour week.
Parry, who retired in 1972 as plant manager, recalled the “spirit and cooperation” of the people who worked for Caterpillar. “It was said of many employees that they had yellow paint in their veins,” he said, referring to the color of the equipment that was produced.
Tony Pavack, 76, who logged 45 years with Caterpillar until his retirement 15 years ago, was less nostalgic.
Hopes For Savings
“You have to compete,” Pavack said. “If you can’t compete, you have to get out.”
But foreign competition, lengthy labor disputes at its Midwest plants and the sharp rise of the dollar against other currencies forced Caterpillar to make some tough decisions in December, 1983, including shutting the doors here.
By consolidating operations and closing the San Leandro facility along with plants in Milwaukee; Mentor, Ohio; Burlington, Iowa, and Newcastle, England, Caterpillar is hoping it can save $225 million a year, according to its 1984 annual report. Caterpillar also is moving some of its operations to Europe and negotiating to sell the 900,000-square-foot plant in San Leandro.
The company is trying to offset some of its $953 million in losses during the past three years. It already has lost $70 million in the first quarter of this year.
The Caterpillar tradition began with Best, who rode a wagon train as an armed guard in the mid-1800s from his native Iowa to Oregon, where he began his industrial career by inventing a machine to clean grain in the field. He later invented a steam-powered wheel-type tractor that became the key to his future success.
Best went to San Leandro from Oregon in 1886 and bought the San Leandro Plow Works, renaming it the Daniel Best Agricultural Works.
At the same time, a company run by Benjamin Holt and his brothers in San Francisco and Stockton had begun building saw wagons, carts, wheels and other farm tools. In the late 1880s, they began manufacturing agricultural equipment.
The Holt company developed the first crawler-type tractor in 1904 and gave it the trademark “Caterpillar” to describe its wheels.
Meanwhile, Best had built his first gas traction engine used in a steam tractor. In 1908, he sold the Holts a patent for the Best steam tractor along with his industrial buildings, and retired.
Clarence Leo Best, Daniel’s son, went on to found the C. L. Best Gas Traction Co. in 1910, and after three years was in keen competition with the Holt brothers.
Site Repurchased
When the Holts moved their San Leandro plant to Stockton in 1913, local businessmen concerned about the loss of a large employer collected $20,000 and gave it to C. L. Best to repurchase the site of his father’s factory at 800 Davis St.
In 1926, Best and the Holt firm merged to form Caterpillar Tractor Co. Corporate headquarters were moved from San Leandro to the Holts’ native Peoria in 1930.
In 1981, Caterpillar closed its plant, tore it down and moved down the block to where the plant stands today.
