[Rebelbase]

IIRC they bought the pumper truck new for $80,000 in 1985. I bet it cost them 1/2 of that to replace the pump system.

[Albion Wilde]

Here is a pic similar to the one that showed up at our house in the 50s, with the rotating barrel-shaped drum. I was so thrilled, as a very small girl, at the sound and smell of the gravely "mud" flowing down a chute out of the back of the mixer into the workmen's wheelbarrows:

In scouring the net for "1950 vintage cement mixer", I was surprised to see that various types of cement mixer equipment had been invented from the late 19th century onward. At first hand-cranked, of course. I was also surprised, when I went to Rome, to see ancient buildings constructed with concrete. Those clever Western Civ fellas!