Caterpillar in Calgary
Union Tractor and Harvester Company
Precisely one hundred years ago, 1925 saw a very significant merger when the CL Best Tractor Company combined forces with the Holt Manufacturing Company (see previous post).
From the beginning, what set Caterpillar equipment apart from its competitors was its diverse customer base. While it was undoubtedly courting farmers, the products appealed to industries beyond agriculture that would be critical to the development of western Canada. As the twentieth century advanced in Alberta, the unique equipment manufacturer, christened “Caterpillar”, was crawling its way into farmyards, mines, lumber camps, and along the railways and soon-to-exist roads of the young province. And in the 1920s if you wanted to look at Caterpillar merchandise, you visited Union Iron and Foundry Limited, located at 14th Street and 17th Avenue East in Calgary.
The amalgamation of Holt and Best saw five tractor models carried over with three coming from Holt and two from Best. The models included the 2-ton, 5-ton, 10-ton, the Thirty and the Sixty.1 Two of those models, the Thirty and Sixty, are in the Pioneer Acres Museum collection. Both were originally CL Best products.
The Thirty had a reputation as a tough and reliable tractor that was well-liked in agricultural settings. It was also popular in construction and logging. It was an easy selection for inclusion during the merger. It would develop into the D4.2 The Sixty was also carried over. Nathan Duncan of Finning/Cat in Regina has high praise for the classic model:
The Sixty was the big brother to the Thirty. It had started as a CL Best Tractor Company model Sixty Tracklayer in 1919. It was the most successful model in the Best lineup, so it was unsurprising that Caterpillar carried on with its production. It remained in production until 30 December 1931, with a total of 18,948 total produced between Best and Caterpillar. The Sixty weighed 20,500 lbs, had a drawbar horsepower of 65 and a belt/PTO horsepower of 75. It was also a 4-cylinder gas engine, but [it] was much larger than the Thirty, with a 6 ½” bore and an 8 ½” stroke, operating a max RPM of 650.
The Sixty is one of the more iconic models from Caterpillar history and is a model lots of collectors wish to have. If you go through the linage of the Sixty, it eventually evolves into the Cat D8. Just like the Thirty, the Sixty was used in agriculture, construction, and logging. The Cat Sixty helped with projects like the Hoover Dam and the original Hollywood sign. It has worked on every continent except Antarctica.
As a bit of Caterpillar trivia, you can identify when a Sixty was built based on the colour scheme because it went through several changes. Initially painted black with red trim, in 1925 the palette was changed to grey with red trim. Few Sixties were painted the iconic Caterpillar yellow out of the factory because there were only twenty-three days from the paint change to yellow and the end of the Sixty production.3
In Calgary, one of the owners of Union Tractor and Harvester Company was William “Bent Axle Bill” Stewart Henderson. Henderson was born in Scotland, and he arrived in Calgary in 1912. In Henderson, we encounter a crossover between agriculture and the mining sector that echoes the story shared by the Whitnack family in this article. Henderson operated coal mines in the Drumheller Valley, including Jewel Colleries at Wayne, Gem Mine at Drumheller, and the Ariel and Star Mines at Rosedale.4 Henderson purchased a half interest in the Riverside Iron Works Company in 1922, and in 1927 he also bought into the Union Iron and Foundry Limited, which was rebranded as Union Tractor and Harvester Company. Henderson initially became a director. In 1929 he would become the president.
In 1928, Union Tractor and Harvester Company got a new location on 9th Avenue and 8th Street West. The building had offices, a service department, showrooms and a warehouse. They also expanded in 1928, opening a branch in Lethbridge and taking over the operations of the Edmonton Caterpillar location.
To advertise, Union Tractor and Harvester Company curated displays in the Calgary Stampede, just like agricultural companies do today.5 They also demonstrated the versatility of Caterpillar machinery in a “School of Instruction” developed and taught by factory representatives, educating farmers and other potential customers on how to use their equipment. As part of the event, the company rented the Palace Film Theatre to show a movie demoing their tractors operating under a variety of working conditions.6 Unlike the small family businesses that ran farm equipment dealerships that this series of articles has previously explored, Union Tractor and Harvester Company was a polished and professional operation with innovative and professional sales techniques that incorporated technology. It was a true departure for marketing, and it proved very successful.
Farmers had been immediately attracted to Caterpillar equipment. Around Alberta, Cats were pulling combines and binders, powering threshing machines and pitching in with field work and farm chores. Meanwhile, the head turning products were saluted for their performance in the Turner Valley oil fields, where the unique crawler tracks were being hailed as the only brand of equipment able to make progress at the site during heavy rainfalls.7 And as more trucks and cars were introduced to western Canada, there was growing demand for infrastructure. Caterpillar was being applauded for the construction of miles and miles of roads that were beginning to crisscross Alberta.8 Caterpillar equipment also turned in an impressive performance when it came to snow removal; Calgarians were wowed to learn that a track had been cleared from Calgary to Langdon, a distance of thirty-five kilometres, after a giant blizzard closed the roads.9
While the tractor business thrived, the 1920s and 30s saw headlines highlighting the treacherous working conditions in the Drumheller Valley at mines managed by Henderson. A selection of these includes “Mine Employee at Drumheller Terribly Hurt”10, “Miner Seriously Injured”11, “Mine Manager Charges Lack of Co-operation By Owners in Valley.”12 The Star Mine operated by Henderson at Rosedale is still marked by the footbridge that the miners used to “commute” across the Red Deer River and by the remains of a tailings pond that is shored up by a low berm just a few meters away from the water.
Henderson’s attitude towards the miners who worked for him was reportedly ruthless. While he owned a comfortable home in Wayne, the miners lived in houses that were little more than shacks, built without insulation, toilets or running water. Workers were trapped between coal cars, fell down mineshafts, were entombed in cave-ins and were killed and injured during rock falls. Life and disability insurance were unheard of, leaving families destitute if their main provider was killed or hurt.13 After “The Big Strike” in 1919, a former employee recounted his experience of being kidnapped and thrown out of town by a group of strike-breakers, including Henderson, who allegedly threatened Thompson with hanging.14 Henderson was also known to beat mine employees with his cane when he was angry.15 In a tale straight out of Charles Dickens, in 1932 Henderson refused to host a Christmas party for his miners and declared that there would be no Christmas turkeys provided for their families. Henderson’s brother intervened and the miners were given their party after all.16
While the conditions for the employees at Union Tractor and Harvester Company were better, Henderson ran the business with an iron hand; the staff were expected to stand at attention to greet him when he arrived in the morning and they seemed to have been afraid of him.17 The workers were typically from respectable blue-collar backgrounds. For instance, Thomas Webb was originally from Wales, and he worked for the Union Tractor and Harvester Company for fourteen years whilst living at the Cecil Hotel.18 While the Cecil came to be known as an unsafe location later in its existence, in the 1930s, it was a clean and decent hotel with a good dining room.
Union Tractor and Harvester Co. was an exhibitor at the Calgary Stampede during the 1940s, and they contributed to the community by supplying generous prizes for the curling bonspiels, just like Finning/Cat does today.19
Of course, what dominated the early years of the 1940s was the war effort. As the Second World War got under way, Caterpillar joined up. The tough equipment that had proven so durable was destined for the battlefield. Caterpillar produced both gun carriages and tanks, but it was their crawler tractors that were needed most of all and they built 56,306 of them.20 Caterpillar participation in the Second World War was so extensive that an entire article could be dedicated to this topic. One specific example comes from the Pacific, where troops, vehicles, cargo and tanks needed to be unloaded onto beaches that had no docks. The strange looking Landing Ship, Tanks (LST) were designed to support these amphibious operations, ensuring that a landing could happen on almost any beach. Each LST had a Cat D8 with a bulldozer designated to it. The D8s were loaded in the front of the ships because sometimes even an LST could not make it all the way to the beach. If this happened, the D8 got off first and half crawled, half swam its way through the water to plow a ramp made of sand to the ship.21
Back home in Alberta, 1945 saw another name change to Union Tractor and Equipment Company. A new location was opened in 1947 in Grande Prairie, and in 1948, Union Tractor and Equipment Co. expanded, moving to a large new building at 830 – 9th Avenue West. A full-page advertisement in the Calgary Albertan saw congratulations pouring in from the local businesses that had contributed to the construction of the impressive new location. The Bay, Eaton’s, Anderson Plumbing, Wilkinson Electric Co. Ltd. and the Buchan Construction Company had all supplied furnishings and fixtures.22 The building included a large shop equipped with a complete line of tools and specialized equipment for working on Caterpillar tractors, two office areas and a parts department that covered 7,000 square feet. An exclusive special feature was an in-house auditorium equipped with a motion projector to be used for sales meetings, displays, and staff functions. There was also a 3,000 square foot showroom. Representatives for the grand opening included the executive vice-president of Caterpillar and representatives from Regina, Seattle and Sydney, Montana.23
The 1950s saw a major change with the death of William Henderson in 1954. Henderson had retired in 1953 but was Chairman of the board of directors at the time of his death. He was a supporter of the Red Cross Crippled Children’s Hospital, Woods Christian Homes and the Grace Hospital in Calgary. He also served in the Salvation Army’s Citadel Corps.24 Henderson was an example of someone who had come to Alberta at a very critical time in its history and had seen the boom of the resource sector from the very beginning. He had benefited tremendously. At the time of his death, he owned a large home in Calgary’s fashionable Mount Royal district.
Henderson’s philanthropic efforts were extensive and admirable, and they appear to reflect another side of his character. However, the mining conditions that he had overseen had both environmental and humanitarian ramifications. Attitudes towards labour were being rewritten during the early twentieth century, with workers around the world challenging their employers on their track record towards working conditions and safety standards. Their defiant strikes had been frightening and infuriating for employers who had never before considered the well-being of the people who worked for them.
When it came to his equipment and tractor business, Henderson had clearly been a successful leader, with expansions in locations around Alberta and moves to a large and technologically advanced buildings in Calgary. His death sounded a note of perhaps inevitable change for Caterpillar in Calgary.
By 1958 Caterpillar operations were being overseen in southern Alberta by Regina and in northern Alberta by Edmonton, so there was no need for regional representation in Calgary. In 1960, the Calgary Allied Arts Centre moved into the former Caterpillar building. Readers today may remember partying at Knoxville’s Tavern, the last occupant of the building, which was demolished in 2022.
Nathan Duncan points out that the original design of the Cat Sixty is still a core element of Caterpillar’s dozers today, showing the longevity and endurance of Caterpillar innovations. While the technology has advanced, the engineering was solid from the beginning, literally ahead of its time. From their earliest days in Calgary, Caterpillar products had been marketed in innovative ways, providing hands-on experiences and demos. The use of a new medium – film – in the 1920s showed an extraordinary openness to modern advertising techniques that were not used by their competitors, and Caterpillar continued to rely on film. The business had also generously supported cultural events in Calgary, including the Calgary Stampede, curling bonspiels – surely as a Scotsman this was Henderson’s idea – and horse shows.
The early Cats sold by the Union Tractor and Equipment Co. built railways and roads around Alberta. For people living and working in Rocky View County, particularly for those who live in the Kathyrn, Irricana and Keoma areas, the roads that you drive on every day were built and maintained by Cats that are presently in Pioneer Acres Museum’s collection.
Today, Finning Canada is the distributor of Caterpillar equipment. It is headquartered in Edmonton. Finning is a worldwide brand, and it operates numerous branches across western Canada, including locations in British Columbia, Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories, and a portion of Nunavut. It continues to be a versatile company, and the diverse industries it supports includes the very same customers that they were courting from their first years in business – mining, particularly in the oil sands, construction, forestry, and beyond.
Congratulations are in order for the first one hundred years!
Interview, Nathan Duncan, March 2025
Ibid.
Ibid.
William Henderson Obituary, The Calgary Herald, 22 November 1954 p. 13.
See These Tractors at the Calgary Stampede, The Calgary Herald, 7 July 1928, p. 13.
Palace Film to Show Caterpillar Tractor, The Calgary Albertan, 5 April 1928, p. 2.
Demand Growing for Caterpillar Tractor in West, The Calgary Albertan, 29 September 1927.
Ibid.
East Trails Are Cleared of Snow by Giant Plow, Road to Langdon Now Back to Gravel, Fit for All Traffic, Calgary Herald, 17 January 1928, p. 14.
20 September 1930, Calgary Albertan p. 20.
Drumheller Review, 28 January 1932, p. 1.
Calgary Herald, 26 September 1935, p. 10.
Henderson, David L., “William Stuart (W.S.) “Bent axle” Henderson, 1873-1954”. Interview with Jay Russell, Curator of Atlas Coal Mine Museum. Used with the courtesy and permission of Atlas Coal Mine Museum.
Thompson, Thomas Patterson, Strike of 1919. Used with the courtesy and permission of Atlas Coal Mine Museum.
Interview with Jay Russell, Curator, Atlas Coal Mine Museum.
Henderson, David L., “William Stuart (W.S.) “Bent axle” Henderson, 1873-1954”. Interview with Jay Russell, Curator of Atlas Coal Mine Museum. Used with the courtesy and permission of Atlas Coal Mine Museum.
Interview, Jay Russell, Curator, Atlas Coal Mine Museum.
Thomas Webb, 56, Drops Dead at Work, The Calgary Albertan, 5 April 1940, p. 11.
Elaborate List of Prizes for Big ' Spiel, The Calgary Albertan, 12 January 1944, p. 9.
Jackson, David D., Caterpillar Tractor Company in World War Two, Retrieved from https://usautoindustryworldwartwo.com/caterpillar.htm. Source recommended by Nathan Duncan.
Ibid.
The Calgary Albertan, 18 August 1948, p. 6.
Union Tractor Officially Opens New Local Plant, The Calgary Herald,17 August 1960, p. 18.
William Henderson Obituary, The Calgary Herald, 22 November 1954 p. 13.
With thanks to Nathan Duncan of Finning/Cat for extensive contributions about the machinery included in this article.
Thank you to Jay Russell, curator of Atlas Coal Mine, for support and assistance with this project.
Thank you to Shelly McElroy for preparing this story.
Thanks also to the Historical Society of Alberta for their funding support.
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