San Leandro Firm Delivers Gun From Battleship Missouri

Once the 16-inch guns of the battleship Missouri hurled 2,100 pound shells 25 miles through the air but today those fearsome steel barrels are silent.

One of these 236,240 pound museum pieces was recently delivered to the Marin Headlands where it will be a memorial to the coastal defense batteries erected during World War II.

Schlepping around humongous object is the specialty of Bigge Crane, a San Leandro firm founded in 1916 by Henry W. Bigge.

Over nearly a century of heavy lifting, Bigge Crane has hauled steel for the Golden Gate Bridge, moved sections of the World War II Liberty ships, helped build oil refineries, and put the pieces back together after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake shook the foundations of the Bay Area.

Run by third-generation family owners Brock Settlemier and Weston Settlemier, Bigge was recently hired to move the 120-ton gun up a steep and winding hillside to a historic battery overlooking the San Francisco Bay.

The Marin Independent Journal sent a reporter to chronicle the arrival of the gun and its slow trip up the hillside.

San Leandro resident and award-winning author Robert Talley noticed this bit of history and urged Patch to spotlight one of the city's oldest businesses.

Have you ever seen a battleship fire its big gun? What's the loudest, most powerful thing you've ever seen?

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