May 9…. Choo choo

We went to Promontory Point today to visit the Golden Spike National Historical Park, the site where the transcontinental railroad linked the east and west.

On May 10, 1869, crews from the Central Pacific Railroad coming from California and crews from the Union Pacific Railroad coming from Omaha Nebraska joined up. A golden railroad spike was driven into a special railroad tie to commemorate the event.

They do a re-enactment of the joining ceremony every year on May 10. We missed it by one day. 🫤. But we did get to see them fire up the locomotives and move them back and forth on the track. Except for when they blew the whistles and rang the bells, the engine was actually much quieter than I thought it would be.

After seeing the engines move, we took a walk along some of the old railroad tracks. The iron rails and crossties are long gone, but the road bed is still in place for miles. Places where they cut through hills and filled in ravines were something to see. Knowing all of the work was done by hand, just 10,000 men with picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows was awe inspiring.

We reached a place where both groups were building parallel road beds within sight of each other. THEY EACH BUILT 125 MILES OF PARALLEL TRACKS!!! IN SIGHT OF EACH OTHER!! All because they had not reached an agreement on where to connect the tracks. Insane!!

They finally agreed on Promontory UT as the place, and history was made. A journey from the east coast to the west that used to take eight to ten months could then be completed in about five weeks. AND the telegraph followed the tracks and allowed messages to be sent coast to coast in minutes.

The railroads opened up the west and the plains states to settlers and spelled the doom of the Indian tribes’ way of life. More and more settlers flooded in, causing conflict with the Indians. The near extinction of the buffalo, roads and towns and farms. Tribes confined to ever decreasing and less and less desirable land. Pretty sure we all know how that turned out.