Our 3rd theme for our Northern Utah trip was History. Our kids went to the Golden Spike National Historic Park with their grandparents over 30 years ago, so we included it in our itinerary with our Iowa grandkids, as we experienced activities that their mom had done.

Golden Spike is located at Promontory Point, Utah. It was established as a national historic sight in 1957. Promontory was the spot agreed upon for the Central Pacific coming from the west and the Union Pacific coming from the east, to meet. The last railroad tie and 3 ceremonial spikes were driven into place on May 10, 1869.

The visitor center desk is built to look like a train ticket office.

The visitor center had displays about the laying of the railroad ties. We also watched a very interesting movie about the history of the railroads that participated in the “last spike” ceremony. There is also a display of a curved rail. Curves were made by pounding the rails with sledge hammers.

We were able to complete the Jr Ranger book and become Golden Spike Jr Rangers.

The Jr. Ranger books add so much to the experience of learning about history. The book activites are designed for all ages. We stamp the back of the pins with park stamp as an added memory.

Outside the visitor center there are numerous plaques dedicated to the many Irish and Chinese railroad workers, who sacrificed everything to complete the transcontinental railroad.

The original track was removed during World War II to be used as scrape metal. A 2 mile section of track was re-built for the 100th anniversary in 1969.

At 10 am each day during the summer, a steam engine built to look like the original Central Pacific engine known as Jupiter, is driven to the ceremonial last railroad tie. We were able to meet the train engineer for Jupiter.

After Jupiter was in place, the coal fired 119 Union Pacific engine was then driven to face the Jupiter engine, just as they did in 1869.

The 3 ceremonial spikes driven into the last tie represented Arizona with a blended ore spike, Nevada was represented with a silver spike, and California was represented with a gold spike.

A 4th spike made of iron was used to connect the telegraph that was built beside the tracks. It was the first time, the west coast and the east cost of the United States communicated by telegraph and the first word tapped was DONE. The entire country celebrated the connecting of the railroad. It is said that more military cannons were fired that day, then on any other day in US history.

This is very realistic as to how the engines looked on May 10, 1869.

There are platforms that you can climb to look into the engines…this is the 119

Looking into Jupiter…

The park service allows vehicles to drive on the original rail bed. The West tour covers the rail bed of the Central Pacific that came from the west coast. Construction was started in Sacramento, California on January 8, 1863.

The railway does not have a grade of more than 1.7 degrees. This was accomplished by digging through the hills and then using that as fill in the valleys.

The auto tour has several stops, that explain the methods used to grade the rail bed. At one of the stops we learned about a type of digging known as the step method.

Looking toward the northern end of the Great Salt Lake…the original train path was chosen to avoid the fluctuations in the lake level.

The Central Pacific set a record when they laid, by hand, 10 miles of track in one day. Each spike was hit 3 times to drive it into the railroad tie.

The second half of the auto tour was the Union Pacific side which started it’s westward construction in Omaha, Nebraska on July 10, 1865.

At one of the stops, we walked out to a deep cut that was dug by hand.

Ironically or perhaps planned as an American tribute, the Omaha to Sacramento railroad segment covered 1776 miles. Along the way, the railroad workers had to develop many different methods, this one illustrates a rock culvert to allow water to pass without eroding the rail bed.

On the East side of Golden Spike is Chinese Arch, named in honor of the 10,000 workers who came from China to help construct the railroad.

After leaving, Golden Spike, we stopped at another part of Utah history…the research facility Northrup Grumman. It has a display of the original Thiokol rockets, which were mostly built in the 1950s-1970s. It was interesting to see the history of US rockets and even one of the original Space Shuttle rocket boosters.

New rockets and components are still developed and tested at this location.

We continued our history theme with a late lunch at the Prairie Schooner in Ogden. It is a fun place to eat…with an outdoor theme and tables inside of pioneer wagons.

Our last adventure with Utah history was at the state capitol in Salt Lake City. The capitol was built on Arsenal Hill, so named as it used to be an ammunition storage area.

The capitol grounds contain statues of the beehive, which is the symbol representing the state motto of “industry”. There is also a monument honoring the Mormon Battalion. It is the only military unit recruited solely from one religious body. They served during the Mexican-American War and marched 1950 miles from Council Bluff, Iowa to San Diego, California.

Construction of the capitol was started in 1912 and completed in 1916. The original budget was 2.5 million but was supplemented with an 800,000 donation from the E H Harriman estate (Union Pacific railroad owner).

Wyatt and Whitney, trying to look very official.

The capitol rotunda has sea gulls soaring across the sky. They are the state bird, famous for eating the crickets and saving the early pioneer’s crops.

In the Rotunda, there are tributes to the various groups who settled the area.

There are skylights above the stairs that lead to the second floor, where you can see the Utah Supreme Court room.

We were also able to look in the House of Representative room and the Senate chambers.

It was a fast and furious history tour of some of Utah’s sites, but we enjoyed learning about the history of the Beehive state.