CHAPTER 6
THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD
B
'ox Elder C o u n t y has the distinction of being h o m e of the Golden Spike National Historic Site which honors the completion of the transcontinental railroad at P r o m o n t o r y S u m m i t on 10 May 1869. However, before officials of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific drove the symbolic golden spike thirty miles west of Brigham City, and the nation celebrated one of the most significant accomplishments in America's history, thousands of construction workers—mostly Irish, Chinese, and Mormons—toiled to open a passage through the high crags, peaks, and defiles of the Rocky and Sierra ranges of m o u n t a i n s , cross countless streams and rivers, build a grade, and lay nearly eighteen hundred miles of rail. As Brigham Young and the vanguard of M o r m o n pioneers journeyed west in 1847, the vision of a transcontinental railroad was in the mind of the nation. Mormons welcomed the transportation revolution that the railroad would bring even though it threatened the isolation they sought. During the 1850s five major transcontinental railroad surveys were authorized by Congress a n d the questions became when and where the Atlantic and Pacific coasts would be tied
