This month the bulldozer turns 100 years old. From its humble beginnings as an attachment on a farm tractor, the bulldozer has become a sophisticated machine with hydraulics and GPS technology, sound systems and air conditioning, and has revolutionized the construction industry.
While there is debate around the actual inventor, it is widely accepted that Kansas framer James Cummings and draftsman J. Earl McLeod created the first bulldozer - a scraper blade with pivoting arms attached to the sides of a tractor - in 1923. Farmers used these to clear dirt and smooth earth for planting fields. According to Mary Herring’s Farm Equipment Value Guides, the bulldozer “came about because Cummings had won a contract to backfill a pipeline trench”, thus beginning the equipment’s introduction to construction.
One of the first bulldozers to be produced commercially was by LaPlant-Choate Manufacturing Company of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and it was used in the construction of the Dixie Highway in Kentucky. But it was the Caterpillar Tractor Company, formed in 1925, that dominated the bulldozer market as we know it today.
Fun fact: According to Mary Herring, the name Caterpillar was coined by a photographer who likened the rollers on the crawler tractor to a caterpillar. From the Golden Gate Bridge to the Hoover Dam, the bulldozer has been instrumental in large scale construction projects. It was the star of the rapid growth of the 1950s, clearing space for the new suburban housing growth, extensive interstate highway system and urban renewal development. The combination of the rotating tracks that allow the bulldozer to traverse uneven terrain, the front blade that pushes with extraordinary power, and the ripper that breaks apart the ground, make it a vital component in building. Modern construction relies on the bulldozer’s versatility, strength, adaptations and attachments to enable a variety of projects.
In addition to construction, the bulldozer is also used in the military. It saw action in
in World War 1, where the “beasts of burden” hauled “heavy artillery and other heavy loads around the front lines when no other vehicle could handle the muddy conditions,” explained by Herrings. During the Second World War, bulldozers constructed highways, runways and fortifications, and cleared bombed out roads.
The bulldozer has come a long way in the last 100 years, from fields to skyscrapers. It’s ability to move earth at an unprecedented pace and scale make it a vital component in construction. We, at SK, couldn’t build without it!
