Missing the Mark

Back in 1864, the race began to build the transcontinental railroad cross-country and collect government land grants and loan bonds.  The Central Pacific came east beyond California into Nevada, towards the Great Salt Lake, and the Union Pacific went west to Ogden, Utah.

The government was using pressure to stop building rail lines that met nowhere, so the Central Pacific and Union Pacific agreed to a junction in the Utah Territory, 70 miles northwest of Salt Lake City at Promontory.  In preparing for that final junction, the construction supervisor of the Union Pacific, J.H. Strobridge and the Union Pacific's Samuel Reed brought out a special laurel rail.  The final two rails were carried by Chinese workers for the Central Pacific and by Irish workers for the Union Pacific.  Photographs were to be taken.  When someone yelled "Take the shot!", the word "shot" frightened the Chinese workers, who saw the camera pointed at them, dropped their rail and ran.  They were finally persuaded to return to place their rail and let the ceremony proceed.

On May 10, 1869, Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific, was the first to swing a silver hammer to nail the last spike in place, a golden spike special for the ceremony.   He actually missed striking the spike and passed the hammer off to Thomas Durant, vice-president of the Union Pacific.  Durant also missed the spike, passing the hammer on to the telegraph operator who finished the job.

The completion set off a series of celebrations from San Francisco to the eastern seaboard.  Two locomotives, the Central Pacific's Jupiter, and the Union Pacific's #119 came toward each other and their cowcatchers met.  Engineers broke bottles of champagne over them in honor of the achievement.  In the center of it all, Central Pacific's Samuel Montague and Union Pacific's Granville Dodge shook hands.

Once the celebrations were over, the workers from both lines got back to work, removed the golden spike and replaced it with an iron spike, and replaced the laurel tie with a regular one.  Souvenir hunters quickly attacked the rail with knives, hoping for a piece of history.  The laurel rail was destroyed in the San Francisco fire of 1906, but the golden spike survives at Stanford University.

On the side of the golden spike are the dates of the first ground-breaking and the completion of the railroad.  Also on the spike are the names of the officers and directors of the Union and Central Pacific Railroads.  A short prayer says, "May God continue the unity of our country as this Railroad unites the two great Oceans of the world." 

Next time...Railroad Travel
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Today in Pioneer History: "On May 17,  1873, writer Dorothy Richardson, whose stream-of-consciousness style influenced James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, is born.  Richardson, though seldom read today, was widely read and discussed in her own time. The daughter of a grocer who went bankrupt when she was 17, Richardson was well-educated and highly independent.