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This year commemorates an important milestone anniversary in American transportation history. Think it’s the moon landing? Think again.
Sure, the impending 50th anniversary of man’s first footsteps on another world represents an epic moment in human achievement. But from a more practical perspective, events that transpired a century prior to the 1969 Apollo 11 mission likely had a bigger impact on America as we know it.
One hundred fifty years ago today, on May 10, 1869, events in a remote section of Utah helped quite literally bring the country together. The sesquicentennial of the Transcontinental Railroad reminds us how it transformed transportation, connecting West and East in a way that presaged the Interstate Highway System of the postwar era.
On that day, railroad crews who had been working feverishly for months from both ends to complete the first transportation system connecting the United States from the East to West coasts met and connected the lines. Coming but four years after the end of the Civil War, this helped lay the groundwork for an American age of industry set to explode onto the world stage.
Myths vs. Facts
My visit to the Utah site last fall led me to discover that the few tidbits many people think they know about this historic event contained as much fiction as truth.
I thought the completion of the railroad occurred at Promontory Point—a common misconception. However, Promontory Point sits approximately 35 miles to the south, at the end of a peninsula that juts out into the Great Salt Lake. The completion of the railroad actually took place at Promontory Summit, also called Promontory Junction.
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