Some historians give credit to an American named Benjamin Holt for inventing the first bulldozer in 1904, and originally calling it a caterpillar or a crawler tractor. However, this would be misleading. Expert, Deas Plant from the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia commented that Benjamin Holt developed an endless chain tread for his steam traction engine at the end of 1904. At around the same time, the Hornsby company of England converted one of its wheeled steam traction engine to a tracklayer [crawler] format based on a patent granted to their chief engineer. Neither of these developments was a bulldozer, both were purely and simply track-laying traction engines. However, the Hornsbys version was closer to the bulldozers we know today in that it was steered by controlling power to each track instead of having a tiller wheel out in front of the tracks as Holts machines did. Hornsby sold their patents to Benjamin Holt around 1913-14.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 02:26:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015