Editing Promontory, Utah (section)

==Golden Spike==
{{Main|Golden spike}}
Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, had been agreed upon as the point where the two railheads would officially meet, following meetings in Washington, D.C., in April 1869,<ref name="WDL">{{cite web |url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/11371/ |title=Ceremony at "Wedding of the Rails," May 10, 1869 at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory |website=[[World Digital Library]] | date=1869-05-10 | access-date=2013-07-20 }}</ref> where it was also agreed that a ceremony would be held to drive in the [[golden spike|Last Spike]] to commemorate the occasion. However, the original date of May 8 had to be postponed for two days because of bad weather and a labor dispute on the Union Pacific side. Over 400 laid-off unpaid graders and tie cutters chained U.P.R.R. Vice-President Thomas Durant's dignitary railcar to a siding in Piedmont, Wyoming, until he wired for money to pay them. After almost a two-day delay, when Durant's train arrived at the Devil's Gate Bridge in Wyoming, floodwaters turned a mild creek into a raging torrent, which threatened to collapse the railroad bridge. The engineer would not take his locomotive, whose number is lost to history, across the rickety structure, but he gave each of the passenger cars a hefty heave. The cars coasted across, but Durant no longer had a way to get to Promontory. A hasty telegraph to Ogden, Utah Territory, sent Union Pacific's engine "119" to the rescue. After a hearty party in Ogden the night of May 9, the dignitaries arrived at Promontory Summit on the morning of May 10, where the Golden Spike Ceremony was finally planned and took place, with the last iron spike driven at 12:47 PM.
 
The trains carrying the railroads' officials were drawn by Union Pacific's ''[[Union Pacific No. 119|No. 119]]'' and Central Pacific's ''No. 60'' (officially named the ''[[Jupiter (locomotive)|Jupiter]]'') locomotives, neither of which had been originally chosen for the ceremony.  The Central Pacific had originally chosen their no. 29 ''Antelope'' to attend the ceremony, while the Union Pacific had also chosen another, unidentified engine for their train, but both engines encountered mishaps en route to the ceremony.  On May 10,<ref name="WDL" /> the Jupiter and 119 were drawn up face-to-face on Promontory Summit, separated only by the width of a single tie. It is unknown how many people attended the event; estimates run from as low as 500 to as many as 3,000 government and railroad officials and track workers. The lack of Chinese workers seen in the official portrait has been ascribed to [[anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States]].<ref name="McClain1994">{{cite book |last1=McClain |first1=Charles J. |url=https://archive.org/details/insearchofequali0000mccl |title=In search of equality: the Chinese struggle against discrimination in 19th-century America |date=1994 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=0-520-08337-7 |location=Berkeley |url-access=registration}}</ref> However, their absence may have been the result of the timing of the famous photograph:  
<blockquote>The more famous [[Andrew J. Russell|A.J. Russell]] photograph could not include the Chinese workers photographed earlier participating in the joining of the rails ceremony, because at the moment the famous photo was being taken it was after the conclusion of the ceremony and the Chinese workers were away from the two locomotives to dine at J.H. Strobridge's boarding car, being honored and cheered by the CPRR ([[Central Pacific Railroad]]) management.<ref name="Chinese" /></blockquote>
Three of the eight Chinese workers who brought up the last rail were guests of honor at the Promontory Summit's golden anniversary celebrations in Ogden, Utah in May 1919.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cprr.org/Museum/Chinese_Laborers.html#1919|title=Chinese Laborers and the Construction of the Central Pacific|publisher=Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum|access-date=28 July 2013}}</ref>

[[Image:The Last Spike 1869.jpg|thumb|''The Last Spike'' by [[Thomas Hill (American painter)|Thomas Hill]] (1881)]]
The event at Promontory Summit was billed as the "wedding of the rails" and was officiated by the Reverend John Todd.<ref name="WDL" /> Four precious metal spikes were ceremoniously driven (gently tapped with a special spike maul sporting a solid silver head into pre-drilled holes in the Laurelwood tie); one was the golden spike issued by Californian David Hewes, one was a second solid gold spike issued by the San Francisco Newsletter Newspaper, one was a solid silver spike issued by the State of Nevada, and one was an iron spike plated with silver on the shaft and gold on the top issued by Arizona Territory and presented by Arizona Territorial Governor Anson P.K. Safford from the Territorial Capitol of Prescott.<ref>Brian Sullivan, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20110928114329/http://www.berkshireeagle.com/pittsfield250/ci_17798772 Day 98: Rev. John Todd]," ''Berkshire Eagle'', April 8, 2011.</ref><ref>John Todd, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=UbQvAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA404 John Todd: The Story of his Life],'' (Harper & brothers, 1876), 403-404.</ref> In 1898, the golden 'Hewes' spike was donated to the [[Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts|Leland Stanford Junior University  Museum]].

In one account, the second Golden Spike and the Laurelwood Tie were destroyed in the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire]], which also destroyed the San Francisco Newsletter Newspaper Offices where these artifacts were on display.<ref name="Bowman">Bowman, J.N. [http://cprr.org/Museum/Bowman_Last_Spike_CHS.html ''"Driving the Last Spike at Promontory, 1869"''] California Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. XXXVI, No. 2,  June 1957, pp. 96–106,  and Vol. XXXVI, No. 3,  September 1957,  pp. 263–274.</ref> In  Union Pacific's account, the location of the "second, lower-quality golden spike ...faded into obscurity".<ref name="UP-ogspsc">{{cite web |title=The Original Golden Spike and its Promontory Summit Companions |url=https://www.up.com/aboutup/community/great-race/golden-spike/index.htm |website=UP.com |publisher=Union Pacific |access-date=7 February 2023}}</ref>

[[Stanford University]] loaned the original 1869 gold spike to [[Cecil B. DeMille]] for the film ''[[Union Pacific (film)|Union Pacific]]'' (1939). It was held aloft in the scene commemorating the actual event, although a brass prop was used for the hammering sequence.<ref>''"DeMille Borrows Golden Spike"'' The United Press (Wire Service), January 19, 1939,</ref> The only marks on The Golden Spike were caused by a Union Army Officer who struck the Spike with the pommel of his sword four times on the ride back to California. Nobody tried to fully drive 17.6 Carat Solid Gold Spikes or any of the precious metal spikes into a wooden tie. Four holes had been drilled into the Laurelwood tie to "hold" the spikes while Stanford and UPRR's Thomas Durant gently tapped them before the Spikes and the Laurelwood Tie were removed to make way for a regular pine wood tie and four regular iron spikes, the last one was wired to the Transcontinental Telegraph Line. Stanford and Durant were supposed to strike the last iron spike with a regular iron spike hammer, also wired to the Telegraph Line, to send a signal from coast-to-coast as the job was done. Stanford missed the Spike, hitting the wooden tie instead; however, the telegraph operator hit his key as though Stanford had hit the spike. Durant missed the spike and the tie entirely; but likewise, the operator hit his key so the Nation would not know the difference. Then the operator sent the message D-O-N-E! With the railroad's completion, a trip across the Nation went from up to six months on foot, on an animal, or in an animal-pulled wagon to as little as eight days from city of New York, via railroads and ferries, to San Francisco.

Promontory Summit marks the site where the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed May 10, 1869, from Omaha to Sacramento, but not "from the Missouri river to the Pacific" as called for by the [[Pacific Railroad Acts|Pacific Railroad Act of 1862]]. [[Western Pacific Railroad (1862-1870)|Western Pacific]] completed the final leg from Sacramento to San Francisco Bay on September 6, 1869, with the last spike at the [[Mossdale bridge]] spanning the [[San Joaquin River]] near [[Lathrop, California]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Mildred Brooke Hoover |first=Douglas E. Kyle|title=Historic spots in California|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AYMPR6xAj50C&pg=PA378|publisher=Stanford University Press|year=2002|page=378|isbn=978-0-8047-4482-9}}</ref> Passengers had to cross the [[Missouri River]] by boat between [[Council Bluffs, Iowa]], and [[Omaha, Nebraska]], until the [[Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge]] was built in March 1872. In the meantime, the first uninterrupted coast-to-coast railroad was established in August 1870 at [[Strasburg, Colorado]], with the completion of the Denver extension of the [[Kansas Pacific Railway]].