GOLDEN SPIKE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

national historic site at Promontory in Box Elder County, northern Utah, U.S., near the Great Salt Lake, commemorating the completion in 6 1/2 years of the first transcontinental railroad (1,800 mi [2,900 km] of hand-built track) in the country. A pyramidal monument marks the spot where the golden (last) spike was driven on May 10, 1869, linking the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads. Replicas of the Central Pacific's Jupiter and the Union Pacific's No. 119, the two engines used during the final stages, are on display. A reenactment of the original ceremony takes place several times daily during the summer months. In 1942 the rails were taken up for war scrap and the golden spike drawn from where it had been driven 73 years before; the old railroad bed remains. The area (2,735 acres [1,107 hectares]) was designated a national historic site in 1957.