Promontory Summit
Location of Promontory, Utah
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A.J. Russell's famous picture recording the meeting of the First Transcontinental Railroad.
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| Locale | Box Elder County, Utah |
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| Dates of operation | May 10, 1869–September 1942 |
| Successor | Lucin Cutoff, January 1905 |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Website | Golden Spike National Historic Site |
Promontory is an area of high ground in Box Elder County, Utah, 32 mi (51 km) west of Brigham City and 66 mi (106 km) northwest of Salt Lake City. Rising to an elevation of 4,902 feet (1,494 m) above sea level, it lies to the north of the Promontory Mountains and the Great Salt Lake. It is notable as the location of Promontory Summit, where the First Transcontinental Railroad in the United States was officially completed on May 10, 1869.
By the summer of 1868, the Central Pacific had completed the first rail route through the Sierra Nevada mountains, and was now moving down towards the Interior Plains and the Union Pacific's line. More than 4,000 workers, of whom two thirds were Chinese, had lain more than 100 mi (160 km) of track at altitudes above 7,000 ft (2,100 m). In May 1869, the railheads of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads finally met at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. A specially-chosen Chinese and Irish crew had taken only 12 hours to lay the final 10 miles (16 km) of track in time for the ceremony.
Promontory Summit had been agreed upon as the point where the two railheads would officially meet, following meetings in Washington, D.C. in April 1869, where it was also agreed that a ceremony would be held to drive in the Last Spike to commemorate the occasion. However, the original date of May 8 had to be postponed for two days, because of bad weather and a labor dispute on the Union Pacific side.
On May 10, in anticipation of the ceremony, Union Pacific's No. 119 and Central Pacific's No. 60 (better known as the Jupiter) locomotives were drawn up face-to-face on Promontory Summit, separated only by the width of a single tie. It is unknown how many people attended the event; estimates run from as low as 500 to as many as 3,000 government and railroad officials, and track workers who were present to witness the event. Historians later thought the lack of Chinese workers seen in the official portrait of the occasion was due to racism; however their absence was actually due to timing:
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