Belyea Truck Co. And The Odyssey Of The Giant Eye

Jack Belyea’s truck company became world famous for hauling gargantuan objects. In 1930, he and his brothers transported a 110-foot, 115-ton kiln 26 miles, then lowered it down a 20-percent grade with winches. They moved yachts, 148-foot girders, even lifted a small locomotive out of a canyon. Ads boasted they would “tackle anything, from a building to a whale” (true: they shipped an orca, beached near Malibu, to a landfill). Unlike his advertising, Belyea downplayed bravado. He’d look disbelieving clients in the eye and ask, “where you want it?”

In November 1947, Belyea signed for the most fragile package he would ever handle. The over-width load required a police escort and an intense, foot-by-foot inspection of the 160-mile route. Engineers stress-tested and shored up bridges. Workers filled in embankments over culverts. San Diego County built a road, S6, specifically for the event. Belyea warned his crew, “The eyes of the world are on us for this job. There can be no mistakes.”

Belyea Truck Company/Pacific Crane and Rigging, Inc. would transport the “Giant Eye” — a 200-inch Pyrex mirror — from Caltech in Pasadena to Palomar Observatory, where it would open up the heavens as part of the world’s largest telescope. His would be the last, crucial leg in a journey decades in the making… read more >