With the locomotives drawn so near, the crowd pressed so closely around Stanford and the other railroad officials that the ceremony became somewhat disorganized, leading to varying accounts of the actual events. The absence of a spike from the Utah Territory, as well as the absence of Mormon officials, was considered conspicuous. a blended iron, silver, and gold spike supplied by the Arizona Territory.a silver spike supplied by the State of Nevada.a second gold spike supplied by the San Francisco News Letter.A crowd of over 3000 government and railroad officials and track workers was present to witness the event.īefore the last spike was driven, three other commemorative spikes, presented by the other three members of the " Big Four", had been previously driven in the pre-bored laurel tie: 119 and Central Pacific's "Jupiter" locomotives engines were drawn up face-to-face on Promontory Summit, separated only by the width of a single tie.
On May 10, in anticipation of the ceremony, the Union Pacific's No. Originally the ceremony was to be held on May 8, but it was postponed two days because of bad weather and a labor dispute that delayed the arrival of the Union Pacific delegation. A special tie of pre-bored polished California laurel was chosen to complete the line where the spike would be driven. The spike had been manufactured earlier that year especially for the event by the William T. The idea of completing the last link in the transcontinental railroad with a spike of gold was due to David Hewes, a San Francisco financier and contractor who was also Stanford's wife's brother-in-law.
0 kommentar(er)
