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Just 23 years after the Donner party passed through Utah on their way to meet their ill-fated end in California, 22 years after the Mormon pioneers first began to settle their new desert home and 8 years after the pony express routinely rode through Utah on their mail route, the Central and Union Pacific Railroads were in Utah completing the nineteenth century’s greatest |
| boon to migration, commerce and travel for the western United States - a rail line that linked the east and west coasts of the United States.
These two rail companies met in the barren Utah desert at Promontory Summit, 67.89 miles north-west of the Great Salt Lake Base and Meridian on May 10th, 1869 to drive the final spike in the rail-line that tied the nation together just 4 years after the Civil War had threatened to pull the nation apart. The ceremonial driving of the Golden Spike, the last spike in the completed rail line was performed at Promontory Summit by Leland Stanford at 12:47 pm on May 10th, 1869. Stanford was also the individual who ceremoniously broke ground at the start of the Central Pacific Railroad’s tracks 6 years earlier in Sacramento California while he was serving as California's Governor. 22 years after driving The Golden Spike Stanford would found Stanford University which currently has possession of the spike. There doesn't appear to be an official count of how many people attended the driving of the Golden Spike but the effect the joined rail-line had on the United States is immeasurable. It allowed unprecedented access to the west and was invaluable to the growth, settlement and commerce of the young American nation. |
