page_title: Promontory, Utah
section_title: Preservation
hierarchical_section_title: Promontory, Utah / Preservation
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo taken by Hyrum K. Wright on August 18, 2005. This image was taken at the Golden Spike National Historic Site and shows the recreated No. 119 and Jupiter locomotives used to commemorate the driving of the Golden Spike to complete the continental railroad on May 10th 1869.
context_page_description: Promontory is an area of high ground in Box Elder County, Utah, 32 mi west of Brigham City and 66 mi northwest of Salt Lake City. Rising to an elevation of 4,902 feet above sea level, it lies to the north of the Promontory Mountains and the Great Salt Lake. It is notable as the location of Promontory Summit, where the First Transcontinental Railroad from Sacramento to Omaha in the United States was officially completed on May 10, 1869.
  By the summer of 1868, the Central Pacific had completed the first rail route through the Sierra Nevada mountains, and was now moving down towards the Interior Plains and the Union Pacific line. More than 4,000 workers, of whom two thirds were Chinese, had laid more than 100 mi of track at altitudes above 7,000 ft. In May 1869, the railheads of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads finally met at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. A specially-chosen Chinese and Irish crew had taken only 12 hours to lay the final 10 mi of track in time for the ceremony.
context_section_description: By the early 1950s, a number of re-enactments of the driving of the last spike had been held at Promontory Summit. The renewed interest led to a concerted effort to save the historic site. In 1957, local campaigners succeeded in getting the area recognized by the federal government, but without federal land ownership. The Southern Pacific, which still owned the right of way, agreed to give its holdings to the federal management. On July 30, 1965 the Act for the Golden Spike National Historic Site was signed into law. The area is administered by the National Park Service.
  On the 110th anniversary of the "Golden Spike" on May 10, 1979, two purpose-built replicas of the UP #119 and the Jupiter #60 were brought together on a specially relaid 1.5-mile section of track. As the original Jupiter had been scrapped for iron in 1901 and No. 119 had been broken up two years later, the two replica locomotives were built in California with $1.5 million of federal funds. They were reconstructed using scaled-up measurements taken from photographs of the original engines and reference to similar engines of the time.
  The park, which has a visitor center and an engine house, is open throughout the year. Several walking trails and audio driving tours allow visitors to see the old cuts along the permanent way, highlighting the effort needed to construct the railroad over Promontory Summit. On every Saturday and holiday between May 1 and Labor Day, the two replica locomotives are lined up to re-enact the "Golden Spike" ceremony.
  On the 150th anniversary of the completion of the railroad on May 10, 2019, the contributions of the 15,000 Chinese railroad workers were finally acknowledged. (Records of the Chinese railroad workers were not kept and it is believed thousands of people died laying those tracks because of treacherous territory, including having to cut through the cold of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the heat of the Mojave Desert.) Many of the descendants of the Chinese workers were in attendance at Promontory Summit for the occasion. A traditional Chinese lion dance opened up the ceremony. The U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao (the first person of Chinese descent to hold the position), paid tribute to those Chinese workers. The acknowledgement from the US government about the part the Chinese railroad workers played in the creation of the railroad was long overdue.
caption: The Golden Spike National Historic Site, with replicas of the Central Pacific's Jupiter and the Union Pacific's No. 119 re-enacting the Golden Spike ceremony
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