True West July/August 2025

The Golden Spike Ceremony at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory

Union Pacific Railroad photographer Andrew J. Russell took a series of photographs, including this image of the mixed crowd of railroad dignitaries, engineers, workers and families gathered between the Central Pacific and Union Pacific locomotives just before the rail workers’ champagne toast, laying of the last rail and the hammering of the Golden Spike. Courtesy Oakland Museum of California

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