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| The layout at the tracks |
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| A pop-up village in the desert |
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| The Jupiter and the 119 meet face-to-face May 10, 2019 |
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We knew we were taking on history, crowds and some adventure when we bought parking tickets (for $20) at the Promontory Point Visitor's Site (now a park) for the 150 Golden Spike anniversary celebration.
We packed on paper for weeks, loaded the cooler with ice, drinks, sandwiches and snacks. We took our hats, our sunscreen, camp chairs, umbrellas and jackets.
We left at 7 a.m. to make the journey to Box Elder County and dutifully got in line with 16,000 other people when we came in sight of the site.
We became part of a convoy of cars that stretched for the last 20 miles from Highway U-83 to the stage where tents, RVs, displays, teepees and food carts were set up.
Officers were keeping track of the traffic. If you didn't have the little parking pass paper, you were sent back with no apology.
We made it, parked and found a place to park our chairs on the downside of the tracks.
It was bustling. People everywhere, many in period clothes, long coats, top hats, bonnets and bustles.
We settled in to hear the music and stories and tributes about the arduous, courageous effort it took to bring the two railroads together, effectively bringing the American states together at the same time.
It was fun to hear the story of the two rail companies competing to reach the ending point first. They worked so hard and furiously that the tracks for the Jupiter Train and the No. 119 actually passed one another for 250 miles before they agreed on a meeting point.
Irishman, freed slaves and about 15,000 Chinese did most of the backbreaking work on the Central Pacific tracks that came 1,085 miles from Sacramento, Calif., to the crews laying 690 miles of rail for Union Pacific from Omaha, Nebraska. (Mormon men did the grading).
They had to lay track in the hot sun, the cold rain, the frozen snow and heavy dust. They had to blast through solid rock and move enough dirt by hand to fill in the areas that dipped too far down for a train to run.
They had to find a way to get through solid granite.
Sometimes they had to build roofs over the tracks in order to work in the falling snow.
They laid an impressive average of 7 miles a day with the record set at 10 miles in one day toward the end!
At the celebratory event, high-ranking officials like the governor and legislators tried to drive the final spikes to commemorate the work: a gold spike for California, a copper spike from Utah, an iron spike from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The men trying to drive them in missed both times just like it happened in real history. (Apparently, the workers learned the art of hitting the spikes just right with the mallet.)
It was an incredible feat that marked a discernable change in American history and economy and accessibility.
It was moving and sobering.
It cost the Native Americans dearly as the railroad tracks crossed sacred lands and ate up beautiful, previously remote and barren areas.
Buffalo herds were harvested without conscience to clear the way for the trains.
The Chinese who worked tirelessly for the railroad were ultimately denied immigration rights to the United States.
May 10, 1869, is a date that clearly deserves remembering.
I thought my husband was a little obsessive to want to be a part of the party and drive all that way for it.
But it actually was invigorating and renewing.
I have a new appreciation for the price paid by peoples I've never met or heard of before.
