How to Install A Giant Pole - By Bob Kelly

Most everyone knows that if you want to put in a fence post, you dig a hole a bit larger than the post, and deep enough for it to be vertical and stable, you then lift it up and place it in the hole, tamping the soil around it, until it is firmly in place. Some of you have done that or seen others do so.

What if the post is 115 feet long, weighs 18,000 pounds, and has to be in the ground nearly 20 feet deep to be stable? Simple... you get a dozen pieces of heavy equipment, a giant crane, and using a large auger you drill a hole 4 1/2 feet in diameter and 19 feet deep. From time to time as you drill the hole you raise the auger to spin it to release the soil it is removing. When the hole is ready, you attach the giant post to the cable of an overhead crane, and lift it slowly from horizontal to vertical, and when it is nearly in position, men grab the base of it with large hand tools and spin it this way or that, and it is lowered in the hole. When perfectly placed, a dump truck slowly empties two tons of crushed limestone rock in the hole around the pole, while workers use air powered tampers to compress it and make it firm. Once the hole is full the machines clear away and the pole is ready to go into use!

Now that you know the recipe, here is how it looks!