High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Benjamin Leroy Holt (January 1, 1849 – December 5, 1920) was an American inventor who patented and manufactured the first practical crawler-type tread tractor. The continuous-type track is used for heavy agricultural and engineering vehicles to spread the weight over a large area to prevent the vehicle from sinking into soft ground. He founded with his brothers the Holt Manufacturing Company and acquired a related patent for a track-type drive mechanism from a British company, Richard Hornsby & Sons of Grantham, England in 1911.