Gin pole would work for the support column, but I guess I was not clear. I need to lift the long 36' beam on top of the side walls.

Hyster? Pettibone? Crane?

It was to go about 8' up and 15 feet over.

A Lull type machine is very handy for this sort of thing. They still lift a good bit of weight, even with the boom extended a ways. Check the rating compared to the weight you need to lift. If you just need to do a couple of picks, hiring out a crane will be cheaper than a lull rental, unless you are going to use it a lot.

At this point, I really need to just lift the main beam into place. What should I expect to pay for a crane? I'd guess that the actual crane time will be less than 1 hour.
Thanks.

You may have to pay for a four hour minimum unless they will do it as a "fill in" job.....
Call around to local crane companies and see what they charge.

That guy is great. But I can see some holes in his methods. Did Stonehenge builders have a pressurized water hose?

Leaving the candy,

Any horse clubs in your area? Draft horses and a clever handler might be able to lend a hand...

LTC, my thinking is that braces wouldn't hurt. don't know what is going on top to stabilize though. when it doubt...

you might want to look at renting one of these. you could roll it in, place your timber skewed on the forks, lift, rotate back and down. if you can find one around to rent, seems like it could save you money.

good luck

genie lift: hand crank

After watching that video I wondered why he doesn't use something cool like REAL BOULDERS. Why would you want a StoneHenge out of concrete slabs? I am gonna send him a note that if he wants to replicate Stone Henge construction he can't cheat and use things that are flat and symmetrical! LOL! ;-)

I call it a "Beam ladder". Once I lifted a 700 lb tie beam 8 ft in the air and installed it without breaking a sweat.
It's also how I load and unload my trailer by myself.
Two rails with protruding arms staggerd at about 8" per side.
It can be made verticle or on an angle. The rails should be about 4 ft apart.
I would show you a picture but my wife left town with the camera plus I don't know how to upload anyways.

here is a pic of a lifting rig we used to put a 6x10x32ft ridge beam on a frame, it's the 2 pcs of 2x6 that stick above the building, and the lifting was done in stages with come alongs.

Mark that looks great! Can you explain a little about your technique?
Thanks.