America's first transcontinental railroad was a 1,911-mile continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the
The ceremony for the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, Utah, May 10, 1869
Title page of Dr. Hartwell Carver's 1847 Pacific Railroad proposal to Congress from Lake Michigan to the West Coast
The official poster announcing the Pacific Railroad's grand opening
The Golden Spike monument located in Council Bluffs, Iowa at the Eastern Terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad.
Promontory, Utah
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Promontory is an area of high ground in Box Elder County, Utah, United States, 32 mi west of Brigham City and 66 mi northwest of Salt Lake City. Rising to an elevation of 4,902 feet above sea level, i
First transcontinental railroad
…Alameda/Oakland to Sacramento, California. The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (CPRR) constructed 690 miles (1,110 km) east from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) built 1,085 miles (1,746 km) from the road's eastern terminus at the Missouri River settlements of Council Bluffs…
The Last Spike by Thomas Hill (1881)
Aerial view of the trestle over the northern part of the Great Salt Lake west of Ogden in Box Elder County, Utah, with the replacement causeway on right (August 1971)
The Golden Spike National Historic Site, with replicas of the Central Pacific's Jupiter and the Union Pacific's No. 119 re-enacting the Golden Spike ceremony