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During the early spring of 1913 Holt returned to Illinois and was employed by William E. Sommerville of the Illinois Aero Construction Company at Coal City, Illinois. Another west-coast pilot, Earl Daugherty, was flying there that season and Holt acted as alternate pilot and mechanic. Somerville was operating two planes and Holt flew a number of early Mid[[crossed out]]-[[/crossed out]]west exhibitions and helped to rebuild the wrecked Morane-Borel monoplane Sommerville had purchased from George Mestach following his air collision and crash at Cicero when Howard Gill was killed. In August Holt flew for the Silver Lake Aviation Company at Akron, Ohio, as a resort attraction for a short time then went to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he finished out the season flying a Kirkham-powered Curtiss-type biplane. In December he was back in Los Angeles, California, for the winter of 1913-1914. 

During 1914 Holt returned to the Mid[[crossed out]]-[[/crossed out]]west, flying exhibition dates and during 1915 he toured the Northwest area. 

In 1916 he went to the new Ashburn Field, Chicago, Illinois, and was there when the United States Signal Corps, Aviation Service, took over the field as a training base [[strike through]] at which time [[/strike through]] Holt signed up as a civilian flying instructor along with T. C. McCauley, Victor Vernon T. D. Hill, E. A. Johnson, C. R. "Sinnie" Sinclair, E. M. Laird and others. 

In January, 1917, the Signal Corps moved the school to Memphis, Tennessee, for the winter months and Holt was transferred there with the group. In the spring of 1917 activities were returned to Chicago and Holt remained there until late summer when he was sent to Langley Field, Hampton, Virginia, with James Johnson and Roderick Wright. 

Langley Field was predominately a flight test base and there Holt [[crossed out]]later[[/crossed out]] began flying an experimental plane built by the Lanzius Aeroplane Company of New York. It was an unusual tractor biplane with a special variable incidence feature and was first powered by a 4 cylinder, 100 [[crossed out]] H1P2 [[/crossed out]] HP3 Duesenburg [[strikethrough]]engine[[/strikethrough]]. 

Following some tests a Liberty engine was installed and the plane sent to McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, for further military tests. There on June 29, 1918, Holt was instantly killed when this plane crashed in a corn field about for miles 

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