10-4 Magazine August 2024

Cover Feature: By Daniel J. Linss filled with old trucks, trailers, equipment, the one shop building, and other various truck par ts and pieces. Across the street, the Cargill Salt Ponds collect salt water then let it evaporate, leaving behind the salt to harvest. This facility has also been around for a long time and began as the Leslie Salt Evaporation Ponds when Leslie Salt was opened in 1901. Cargill bought the company in 1978, but the Leslie name remained until 1991. In some of the photos, you can see those famous piles of salt in the background. Mike’s father Tom and another par tner purchased the Mowry Avenue proper ty around 2005. After Mike’s mother passed away in 2009 and his father in 2017, Tom’s ownership por tion went to Mike and his brother and sister. Today, The Viviano name has been associated with bottom dump trucking and setting the bar in California’s Bay Area since 1959, back when Tom Viviano star ted VTI Trucking. These days, his son Mike Viviano (62) carries on the family name and tradition, doing the same thing, in the same area, under his company banner Viviano Trucking. Not only does Mike have a cool 2-axle Peterbilt with a lot of history, he also is par t owner of a historical piece of proper ty in Newark, CA, which is where we recently did our photo shoot for this month’s cover feature. It might not look like much today, but this proper ty was once Peterbilt’s Environmental Research Facility, and it still has the sign on the fence to prove it! As most of you know, Peterbilt trucks were built at a facility in Newark, CA from 1960 to about 1986. Their Denton, TX facility opened in 1980, but the Newark location remained active until it was closed in 1986. This 176,000 square foot manufacturing and assembly plant was located on Cherry Street, about a block west of Mowry Avenue, in Newark. Today, there is an Amazon Sor ting Center and a lumber company on that proper ty. About a half mile south on Mowry is where Mike’s proper ty is located, and it is literally right around the corner from that old Peterbilt plant. While we were there, we drove around and looked at all these places, did some research, and were moved at the thought of all the history that happened there. We were also shocked that there is not some kind of historical marker at the site of the old factory – because there really needs to be. The 35-acre facility on Mowry Avenue was where Peterbilt trucks were tested for durability, comfor t, and longevity. It is said that trucks would run the rough “course” 24/7 for long periods of time to fetter out any problems that might come up as their trucks were used and possibly abused. There was a metal building on-site, along with a small office building next to it, where the tests would be monitored, and the trucks inspected and/or worked on. Today, the office building is gone, but the building that Mike calls their “shop” – the same building his latest truck was built in – is the original metal structure that was there when Peterbilt Motors Company ran the facility. That is pretty cool. Today, the proper ty, which sits along the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay and is zoned for farming and agriculture, is shared by Mike and his siblings, along with another par tner, and isn’t much more than a typical truck yard, 10 10-4 Magazine / August 2024 SETTING THE BAR