The Golden Spike, Utah and the World of 1869
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the First Transcontinental Railroad, completed on May 10, 1869 at Promontory, Utah in a ceremony that joined 1,087 miles of Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) track (originating at Council Bluffs, Iowa) to 690 miles of Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) track (originating in Sacramento, California). CPRR President Leland Stanford (former Governor of California and later founder of Stanford University) used a silver maul to tap a ceremonial final spike made of copper-alloyed gold into a pre-bored hole in a specially polished railroad tie made of California laurel wood while two locomotives, CPRR's Jupiter and UPRR's No. 119 , were brought face to face on the tracks and the news went out across the country on the transcontinental telegraph line (which itself had been joined together at Salt Lake City in October 1861). The journey that had taken wagon trains several grueling months and upwards of $1,000 in provisions to complete could then be