Silver Eagle Manufacturing · Portland, Oregon · Since 1933
More than ninety years of getting it to last.
We've built the couplings and custom rigs that hold America's freight together since 1933 — for the biggest fleets in the country and the U.S. military. What one family started is now a team of 70-plus, in the office and out on the floor, set on building you the best equipment we can and standing behind it.
The short version
Built to last isn't a slogan here. It's the same problem we've been solving since 1933.
1933
It started with a truck, not a dolly.
Silver Eagle’s founder, Judy Gaussoin — a self-taught Idaho farm boy — made the first payment on a salvaged 1926 REO Speedwagon on June 10, 1933, and ran a hauling route across the Oregon–Idaho line out of a terminal on North Willamette Boulevard in Portland. He called that first truck “Silver Eagle 1.” The name stuck, and the company was born.
1938
We patented the piece that holds doubles together.
To pull trailers safer and straighter, Judy invented and patented the Silver Eagle Fifth Wheel. He kept going — the original drawings behind what became the RoadRanger transmission, better air brakes, the Dump Valve — all chasing one thing: the safest truck on the road.
1955
The converter dolly the industry ended up copying.
The first Silver Eagle converter dolly went out the door on 21 August 1955, built on that same fifth-wheel principle — transverse leaf springs, rubber-mounted, the signature eye. It pulled straighter, hooked easier, and outlasted what everyone else was selling. Every dolly we build today still runs on the geometry Judy drew in 1938.
Today
78,000 square feet, all under one roof.
Three generations on from that first truck, Silver Eagle is a team of more than 70 — in the office and out on the floor — still designing, cutting, welding, coating, and assembling every build under one Portland roof. Nothing gets farmed out. The way we see it, you’re a partner, not an order number, and we earn that with the service, the design, and how every rig gets put together.
“Judy chased one thing his whole life — the safest thing on the road. More than ninety years on, that's still the entire job: make it pull straighter, hook easier, and outlast whatever's towing it.”
The through-line, since 1933
A few things worth knowing
The stuff that doesn't fit on a spec sheet.
- A transmission that outlived him.
- Judy drew the original designs that eventually became the RoadRanger transmission — a name that still rolls down the highway today.
- Our welders are cleared for aerospace.
- AWS D17.1 certified — the same weld standard that goes into aircraft — plus a fully automated robotic welding cell.
- We build launchers for drones.
- Mark IV launch systems for the ScanEagle UAV program, right alongside dollies for UPS and cargo trailers for the U.S. Army.
- One dolly, about 16% more tire life.
- The Eagle single-axle converter tracks so true that fleets get noticeably more miles out of a set of tires.
- The T-Dolly can shave your fuel bill.
- Its drawbar retracts at highway speed to close the gap between trailers — closing the trailer gap to cut drag on every highway mile.
- A team of 70-plus — and still family.
- Three generations in, a lot of the people in the office and on the floor are related — or close enough that it doesn’t make a difference.
Who we build for
The country's biggest fleets. And the ones who can't afford a failure.
- 90+
- Years in business
- 70+
- People, office & shop
- 70K
- Sq ft, one roof
- ISO 9001
- Quality certified
Bring us the job
We build custom. That's the whole game.
If a proven platform fits, we'll start there. If it doesn't exist yet, we'll engineer it — or call the shop and ask for a real person.