 Holt wanted to find manufacturing facilities closer to the vast agricultural markets of the midwest. Benjamin Holt's nephew, Pliny E. Holt, had been dispatched in March 1909 to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he began manufacturing operations. They shipped parts for ten Model 45 tractors, but only two were produced. Pliny met Murray Baker, an implement dealer, who knew of an available factory that had been used to manufacture farm implements and steam traction engines. Baker, who later became the first executive vice president of what became Caterpillar Tractor Company, wrote to Holt headquarters in Stockton and described the plant of the bankrupt Colean Manufacturing Co. of East Peoria, Illinois. Pliny inspected the Colean factory in late June 1909 and learned they had spent at least $ 450,000 on the relatively new building and machinery. Holt could acquire the assets for the $ 50,000 note held by a trust company. Pliny Holt wrote a letter to the Stockton management team on July 1, 1909, reporting, "The plant is as complete and perfect in every detail as I have ever seen ... and one of the best arranged plants that I ever saw."
