Transcontinental Railroad: Building To Connect A Continent
Promontory Point, 1869, Wikipedia
"The road must be built, and you are the man to do it. Take hold of it yourself. By building the Union Pacific, you will be the remembered man of your generation."
- President Abraham Lincoln to Oakes Ames, 1865
Promontory Point
The "Golden Spike", 1869, Wikipedia
At the Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, Leland Stanford drove the Last Spike that joined together the rails of both ends of the railroad. The spike is now on display at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. In perhaps the world's first live mass-media event, the hammers and spike were wired to the telegraph line so that each hammer stroke would be heard as a click at telegraph stations nationwide but the hammer strokes were missed, so the clicks were sent by the telegraph operator. As soon as the ceremonial "Last Spike" had been replaced by an ordinary iron spike, a message was transmitted to both the East Coast and West Coast that simply read, "DONE." Travel from coast to coast was reduced from six months or more to just one week.