One of the supporting ties had been used as a roof beam in a barn that Edgar Stone, the fireman on the Jupiter, had built in North Ogden. The 1903–04 construction of the Lucin Cutoff siphoned most of the traffic from Promontory’s “Old Line.” The last tie of laurel was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. In 1901 the Central Pacific steam engine “Jupiter” was scrapped for iron. But, unlike many of these “hell on wheels” camps, Promontory never became the site of a permanent city. The land speculators, petty merchants, saloon keepers, gamblers, and prostitutes who had followed these tent cities stayed only as long as there were workers to entice. Reed took turns driving the last spike.įor several weeks Promontory continued to be a town of tents and crude shacks. Still, telegraph operator Shilling clicked three dots over the wire: “done.” Meanwhile, with an unwired sledge, construction supervisors James H. However, Stanford and Thomas Durant from the Union Pacific both missed the spike. Both spike and sledge were wired to send the sound of the strikes over the wire to the nation. the actual last spike-an ordinary iron spike-was driven into a regular tie. No spike represented Utah, and Mormon church leaders were conspicuous by their absence.Īt 12:47 P.M. These spikes were dropped into a pre-bored laurelwood tie during the ceremony. A silver spike was Nevada’s contribution, and a spike blended of iron, silver, and gold represented Arizona. It was engraved with the names of the Central Pacific directors, special sentiments appropriate to the occasion, and, on the head, the notation “the Last Spike.” A second golden spike was presented by the San Francisco News Letter. The famed “Golden Spike” was presented by David Hewes, a San Francisco construction magnate. Leland Stanford, one of the “Big Four” of the Central Pacific, had brought four ceremonial spikes. 119 and Central Pacific’s “Jupiter” engines lined up facing each other on the tracks, separated only by the width of one rail. Union Pacific Railroad under construction, Promontory Point, May 10, 1869 The crowd pressed so close to the engines that reporters could not see or hear much of what was actually said, which accounts for many discrepancies in the various accounts. The ceremony that day to mark the completion of the last set of ties and spikes was somewhat disorganized. Therefore, Congress acted to set the meeting point at Promontory. There was nothing to prevent each line from continuing to build and thus increase the subsidies it might receive from the federal government. The federal legislation chartering the transcontinental project had not provided that the tracks join. At Promontory they met crews of the Central Pacific, which had included over 10,000 Chinese laborers, who had built the line east from Sacramento, California.Īctually, the construction crews built several miles of track parallel to each other. Railroad crews of the Union Pacific, 8,000 to 10,000 Irish, German, and Italian immigrants, had pushed west from Omaha, Nebraska. On from Promontory Summit northwest of Ogden, Utah, a single telegraphed word, “done,” signaled to the nation the completion of the first transcontinental railroad.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |