The Golden Spike by Don Nardo

Author:Don Nardo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 9780756549916;9780756549978;9780756549992;nonfiction;Compass Point Books;Captured History;Andrew J. Russell;photography;transcontinental railroad;golden spike;East and West
Publisher: Capstone
Published: 2014-12-05T21:26:23+00:00

Union Pacific officials pose in front of engine No.119.

Drilling the holes for the special spikes was only part of the last-minute preparations. The engineers who drove two huge locomotives—the Central Pacific’s Jupiter and the Union Pacific’s No. 119—slowly moved the engines toward the gap in the tracks. They stopped when the trains were facing each other about 70 or 80 feet (21 or 24 m) apart. The plan was for the ceremony to take place on the tracks between them.

At the same time, several telegraph operators were making their own special preparations. Headed by Watson N. Shilling, they added the final touches to a mechanical arrangement that was very high-tech for its time. A telegraphic signal would be broadcast to millions of people across the country signifying the symbolic insertion of the ceremonial spikes. In the weeks just before the big day, telegraph lines had been installed beside the tracks at Promontory. These connected with telegraph offices in Omaha, Chicago, and New York in the East and San Francisco in the West.

In the morning of May 10, operators double-checked a special spike and hammer that already had been wired and attached to the telegraph line. According to the plan, when the hammer touched the golden spike, an electrical signal carrying the code for the letters D O N E would race eastward and westward. It would tell the rest of humanity that the long anticipated transcontinental railroad line had finally become a reality.

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