Golden Spike National Monument

OK, readers, it's time for a small, hopefully interesting USA history lesson.  Let's see a show of hands:  Who knows what the Golden Spike is?  No, it's not a new rapper or basketball player's nickname.  The Golden Spike was an actual gold spike that was driven into the railroad tie that joined the United States together with a railroad line.  Sort of seems archaic, doesn't it?  In actuality, the symbolic act of driving in the Golden Spike can be seen as the event that closed the American Frontier, the death knell of the Native American Plains culture, and the symbolic birth of America's coming reliance on technology - that's what railroads were in the 19th century - cutting edge technology.  

The rails were actually built by two privately held railroad companies with subsidies from the US government.  The Union Pacific started in Omaha, Nebraska and the Central Pacific started in Sacramento, California.  They met at Promontory Summit in northwestern Utah.  (The owner of the California railroad was Leland Stanford - who founded Stanford University.)  Today, the Golden Spike National Monument is close to the actual site of the summit - and the auto tour is actually on portions of the unused grade that was leveled in 1869 in preparation for rails to be laid.  The two companies actually graded 250 more miles than necessary while Congress wrangled over the site of the rails' meeting place.  

There were actually four 'golden spikes' - all which were commemorative, and one of which was made out of silver.  The actual 'golden spike' that was driven into the wooden rail isn't at the national monument - Leland Stanford took that right back to California at the end of the ceremony and it's housed today at Stanford University.   The Golden Spike Monument location does have two locomotives that stoke up their steam and approach one another three times a day during the summer months as they must have done on May 10th of 1869.  They are really lovely examples of 19th century craftsmanship.

Another amusing nugget of information:  The term 'hell on wheels' originated as a result of the building of the Union Pacific line (that's the one that was built east to west).  It referred to the gamblers, whores, saloons and other  dubious businesses that 'followed' the building of the tracks in wagons.  Even then, all work and no play makes Paddy the track worker QUIT.  Interestingly, the rails were built east to west by Irish immigrants and mustered out Union soldiers, some of whom were probably suffering from PTSD as a result of the Civil War. Hiring on to build rail lines allowed them to flee the home they returned to when they couldn't resettle into civilian life.  However the workers building the rails from west to east ultimately turned out to be Chinese.  There was a labor shortage to start with in the West.  Add gold and silver fever, and the Central Pacific couldn't find enough workers, so they imported Chinese laborers who they paid less than their white compatriots, and weren't even offered  food (which was part of the pay of the white track workers).  At the Golden Spike National Monument, there's a natural arch formation which is called "The Chinese Arch" to commemorate the Chinese labor contribution to this monumental task.

Overall, the Golden Spike National Monument seems ho hum today.  It's hard for us to grasp the symbolic and actual importance of two small iron rails laid across wooden ties and fixed in place with iron spikes.  Perhaps you can think of it with reference to the world wide web.  The world is tied together so much more intimately than it ever was before the advent of the Internet.  The United States became tied together in the same way because of those two little rails meeting in the middle of nowhere, Utah.  They were the start of knitting together the United States into one country and allowing all the resources of the entire country to be utilized.

This was a technology day all around.  We saw state of the art 19th century technology, but we also saw state of the art 20th century technology.  As we were driving toward the monument park, there was another sign saying:  Rocket Display.  It turns out that the industry of northwest Utah is space and defense manufacturers.  Morton Thiokoll (of infamous Challenger "o" ring fame) has decorated their Utah facility with facsimiles of the rockets and boosters they build.  Drake was really, really excited to see the Space Shuttle Booster up close and personal.  It was pretty impressive.  I also liked some of the other stuff they were displaying including one motor that really looks like an alien life form in a 1957 scifi movie.  

Finally, we saw some impressive scenery today including the Bonneville Salt Flats, which are actually a prehistoric lake bed.  To check out all the pix, click on the following link:

https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2012UtahGoldenSpikeNationalMt?authkey=Gv1sRgCIautrrPmse8qQE#