Path to Halton Tractor

Abridged excerpts from Cathleen Corrie-Findlay’s history of Halton Company

Ted Sr. (father of Halton’s president, Ted Halton) loved the outdoors and outdoor activities. He grew up wanting to be a farmer, and majored in agriculture at University of California Berkeley. Unfortunately, as he discovered when he got out of school, he couldn’t afford a farm and his family were not farm people. He tried his hand at the family business of insurance. Then he applied to the management training program at the California Packing Company (renamed the Del Monte Corporation in 1967), packer of dried prunes, apricots, and pears. He held that job during the Depression, when the company cut everyone’s pay by 50% and laid off 50% of the workers.



Ted moved to Napa, California, where he and Ash Hill started their cherry business, called Hill and Halton. Ash Hill was the financial partner and Ted was the operator; they bought, pitted and brined cherries and shipped them off to the Liberty Cherry Company of Covington, Kentucky. Concurrently, Ted sold ties his wife, Sarah Dudley Halton, wove. By the time Ted began his fateful friendship with Ross Berglund he was ready to sell bigger things.

Ross Berglund was the Caterpillar dealer for Napa and Sonoma Counties, and he suggested that Ted Sr. look into the business. He took Ted to San Leandro, CA, to the Western US district office for Caterpillar, and Ted met with the Cat administration and sales people. In 1940, Cat told Ted that the dealership in Visalia, California, was for sale for $70,000.

Ted didn’t have $70,000 – far from it. However, he did have $15,000 saved up, and borrowed $20,000. Meanwhile, he approached his friend Jack Treanor to ask if he was interested in a partnership, each going in for $35,000. Jack agreed, and they got the dealership (named Halton Treanor) located in Visalia, California, Sarah’s hometown. Mindful of the intricacies of partnerships, Ted made sure they had a termination agreement before they started. It stated they would split once profits allowed. Jack (whose family had a good net worth) would buy out Ted. Ted could then use this as seed money to aquire a new territory from Caterpillar. Two and a half years later, on February 15th, 1943, they did just that; Ted, Sarah and son Ted Jr. moved to Merced, California to start Halton Tractor.

Check back next month for more of Halton's history.