Promontory Point, Utah June 23, 2006

Promontory Point, Utah. As I write this, I can hear a train whistle - there has been one every hour so far this evening. These are replicas of the actual trains that arrived here on May 10, 1869. The Central Pacific started around Sacramento, went through the Sierra Nevada mountains and arrived here. The other train company started in Omaha and headed West. It took 6 years and about 6 million spikes. The federal government awarded each train company rights to the land surrounding the track, so guess what, each side wanted more land than the other guy, so they pushed their workers (mostly Chinese) way too hard. Of course, they passed each other by about 250 miles, because Congress couldn't decide where they would meet. Finally the decision was made- Promontory Point, a sorta peninsula in the Salt Lake. They laid the last 10 miles in one day. Leland Stanford was President of Central Pacific, Governor of CA and soon to be University guru. Both he and the President of the other Railroad swung the ceremonial maul on the Golden Spike and both missed, but the foremen on the job finished up the last spike. Now the 6 month hike over the 'ruts' was down to a 3-6 day train ride. Some say the Union Pacific railroad made us one nation. Out here one sees 2-10 huge, miles long, Union Pacific trains every day.