Golden Spike National Historic Site at Promnatory, Utah.
May 31, 2007.
This morning we visited Brigham City, Utah & the Bear
River National Migratory Bird Refuge. We dropped the motorhome
at a Super Wal Mart located at exit 364 and headed to Bear
River National Migratory Bird Refuge 20-miles west of Brigham City,
then to the Golden Spike National Historic Site at Promnatory, Utah.
To get to the Golden Spike National Historic Site from I-15 take
exit 368 and travel west on SR 13 to the intersection with SR 83.
Continue west on SR-83 for around 25-miles following the brown signs.
Golden Spike National Historic Site
While America's first railroads were operating in the 1830s people
of vision foresaw transcontinental travel by rail. This idea gained
support as a national RR system took shape.
By the beginning of the Civil War, America's eastern states were
linked by 31,000 miles of rail, more than in all of Europe. Virtually
none of this network, however, served the area west of the Missouri
River.
Until the Great American Desert and the Rockies were bridged, the
vast western territories would be a part of the nation in name only.
A continent-spanning railroad would also bring more tangible benefits:
It would boost trade, shorten emigrants' journey, and help the army
control American Indians who were opposed to white settlement. Anticipating
great financial and political rewards, northern, midwestern, and southern
senators made their cases for locating the eastern terminus in their
regions.
In California, Theodore Judah had his own plan for a transcontinental
railroad. By 1862 the young engineer had surveyed a route over the
Sierra Nevada and persuaded wealthy Sacramento merchants to form the
Central Pacific RR. That year Congress authorized the Central Pacific
to build a railroad eastward from Sacramento and in the same act chartered
the Union Pacific RR in New York. The Civil War had removed the southern
senators from the debate over the eastern terminus location, thus
the central route near the Mormon Trail was chosen, with Omaha as
the eastern terminus. Each RR received loan subsidies of $16,000 to
$48,000 per-mile, depending on the difficulty of the terrain, and
10 land sections for each mile of track laid. While work was started
in 1863 not much was accomplished while the country's attention was
diverted by the Civil War. Investors could reap greater profits from
the war, and the army had first priority on labor and materials. Central
Pacific's Collis Huntington and UP's Thomas Durant, exemplars of the
no-holes-barred business ethics of the period, visited Washington
with enough cash to help congressmen understand their problems. A
second RR Act of 1864 doubled the land subsidies. Still little track
was laid until labor and supplies were freed at war's end.
Central Pacific crews faced the rugged Sierra range almost immediately.
While the Union Pacific started on easier terrain, its work parties
were raided by Sioux and Cheyenne. With eight flatcars of material
needed for each mile of track, supplies were a logistical nightmare
for both RRs, especially Central Pacific, which had to ship every
rail, spike, and locomotive 15,000 miles around Cape Horn. Both pushed
ahead faster than anyone had expected. The work teams, often headed
by ex-army officers, were drilled until they could lay two to five
miles of track a day on flat land.
Union Pacific drew on the vast pool of America's unemployed: Irish,
German and Italian immigrants, Civil War veterans from both sides,
ex-slaves, and even American Indians --8,000 to 10,000 workers in
all. It was a volatile mixture, and drunken bloodshed was common in
the "Hell-on-wheels" towns thrown up near the base camps.
Because California's labor pool had been drained by the rush for gold,
followed by the silver boom, Central Pacific hired several thousand
Chinese, the backbone of the railroad's work force.
By mid-1868 Central Pacific crews had crossed the Sierra and laid
200 miles of track, and the Union Pacific had laid 700 miles over
the plains. As the two work forces neared each other in Utah, they
raced to grade more miles and claim more land subsidies. Both pushed
so far beyond their railheads that they passed each other, and for
more than 200 miles competing graders advanced in opposite directions
on parallel grades.
Congress finally declared the meeting place to be Promontory Summit,
where, on May 10, 1869, two locomotives pulled up to the one-rail
gap left in the track. After a golden spike was symbolically tapped,
a final iron spike was driven to connect the railroads. The Central
Pacific laid 690 miles of track; the Union Pacific 1,086. they had
crossed 1,776 miles of desert, rivers, and mountains to bind together
East and West.
Thus, the transformation of the western United States was wrought
by two rails four feet eight and one-half inches apart, snaking across
hundreds of miles of sparseness. They joined two oceans and cemented
the political union of states with a physical link.
It also was a wedge through the frontier. The west at that time belonged
to the American Indians and the enourmous herds of buffalo on which
they depended. Many Indians fought white settlement of their land,
but as the railroads brought in car after car of troops and supplies,
the Indians could no longer repel the army. Settlers flowed in behind
and put the land to the plow, while millions of buffalo were killed.
For the late emigrants, the railroad changed what it meant to be
a pioneer. A journey that had taken six months by ox-drawn wagon took
six or seven days by train. The Union Pacific built railroad stations
along the way, and settlements grew up around them. Some railways
sold supplies and even provided dormatories for emigrants until they
could settle. Twenty-one years after the railroad was completed, the
frontier was history.
Even before it was completed, the railroad had begun to change the
West. As the railheads moved across the land, supply houses and service
businesses grew up in their wakes. Some tent towns like Reno and Cheyenne
survived to become respectable cities. Workers who had been trained
on the railroad built towns and staffed factories and mines.
Another anticipated benefit of the railroad, increased trade with
the Far East--never materialized. The Suez Canal was completed the
same year as the railroad, and Far East goods could now be shipped
to Europe faster by way of the canal than across America. But that
loss was compensated for by the rapidly growing western rail trade,
out of which a vigorous, interlocking economy developed. Western mountains
were rich with low-grade silver, lead, and copper ores, made profitable
by long trains of ore cars. They were used by industries in the East,
whose products found a growing market in the West. Western agriculture
made geat advances as new farming techniques, livestock strains, and
machinery moved in by rail. Cash, generated by produce shipped east,
poured into the region, and budding western financiers learned how
to raise money to capitalize new industry. Factories were built, and
the growing industrial population provided a new market for western
farm produce.
More than economically, the railroads tied the West to the eastern
states. They altered the very pace of life, putting people on a schedule
who had always geared their activities to natural rhythms. National
politics came west, as candidates made whistle stop tours of small
towns in search of votes. As railroads made travel into the West safe
and comfortable, visitors from the eastern states and Europe toured
the "New America".
With the coming of the railroads, the West, for so long the vast,
forbidding "out there," was brought into the national life.
That folks, pretty much sums up the signifigance of this Golden Spike
Historical Site. It is the place where the last spike spanning the
continent was driven changing forever life across this country.
Central Pacific's Jupiter and Union Pacific's No 119
The Visitors Center has on display two recreated icons of railroading
history at the Last Spike Site. Central Pacific's Jupiter and Union
Pacific's No 119 steam out and perform for visitors on most days,
weater permitting.
Union Pacific's Steam Engine 119
Union Pacific's Steam Engine 119
This is Union Pacific's Steam Engine 119 performing for visitors.
Inside the Visitors Center a museum has exhibits of tools and equipment
used to build the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Also a short
video tells the story of the great race to Promontory.
In addition to tools and equipment a section is reserved for displaying
memorabelia connected with this momentus event.
"Golden Spike"
It seems there was more than one gold spike. In addition there was
several silver spikes, and other spikes that were a combination of
gold, silver and steel.
Silver Spike
Last Tie & last Spikes
Second Golden Spike
Arizona Iron-Silver-Gold Spike
I think there were others but I don't seem to have pictures of them.
With the completion of the transcontinental Rail Road an arduous
six months' journey was reduced to less than a week. The prairie schooner
passed into history replaced by railway cars and steam engines.
For four years Americans closely followed the progress of the railroad
progress in their newspapers, anxious to see it completed. By May
1869, intense attention was focused on this desolate corner of northern
Utah. The entire country was eager for word that the last spike had
been driven.
A telegraph signal sent from this site triggered a truly transcontinental
extravaganza. As the word went out over the wires, the nation went
wild. In city after city, church bells rang, trains hooted, fire engines
howled, gongs clanged, and cannons thundered. Citizens thronged the
streets to watch parades. People sang The Star Spangled Banner, prayed,
and shouted themselves hoarse. Countless orators hailed this as a
"great day" of national destiny.
Plaque to Commorate & Pay Tribute to the Chinese
Workers of the Central Pacific Railroad
I couldn't pass up this plaque. The Chinese workers on the western
end of this monumental project actually make this project a reality.
Some things never change. Congress has as hard a time making decisions
today as they did back in the mid-1800s. It was Congress job to make
a decision where the two RR's would meet. As usual Congress did not
make a decision until the RR's had laid over 200-miles of parallel
track. Of course the Rail Companies did not mind since they were being
financially rewarded for each mile of track that they completed. Some
things never change!
Birth of Promontory, Utah
This photo was taken one day before the transcntinental line was
finished, a thirty-foot gap in the railroad remains to be completed.
Quickly a town grew at the Last Spike Site and two of the first businesses,
the Restaurant and the Red Cloud saloon, stand in the background.
Within days numerous other tents would appear as the town of Promontory
came into existence. Behind the crowd are some of the cars which carried
Central Pacific Railroad dignitaries to the celebration.
The transcontinental railroad stimulated communications as well.
As rails reached into the wilderness, telegraph wires were strung
alongside. Stage companies thrived as freight and passengers were
transported from end of track into the interior. Slowly the frontier
was opening to settlement.
Upon the transcontinental's completion branch lines fanned out to
newly-established communities. A telegraph network developed. Mail
delivery was improved. Under this momentium two more transcontinentals
were built, and by the 1890's the frontier had vanished.
Today this monument remains an icon of westward expansion, the settlement
of northern Utah and commemorates an historic event that transformed
America.
Golden Spike National Historic Site
In my opinion this is one historic place that everyone should visit.
Not for the spectacular scenery but to experience first hand the awesome
achievement this site commemorates.
Until next time remember how good life is.
Mike & Joyce Hendrix
