Full Chisel Blog

After searching everywhere for the standard, I literally stumbled over it, right there in the side walk.  It is located on the North side of Washington Square, the current home of the Salt Lake City and County Building.  This was the original site where Orson Pratt and the advanced party spent the first night in the Great Salt Lake Valley a day ahead of Brigham Young’s arrival.  It was originally called Pioneer Camping Grounds and Emigrant Camping Grounds.

This bronze plaque embedded in the sidewalk, and it was the only one I saw, but I didn’t go all the way around the block to see if there were others.  I am not sure what it means but I found it, so I can quit searching!

Stephen

As it was on the one hundredth anniversary of the Golden Spike, I was an agent/telegrapher for Union Pacific Railroad, so I had an historical tie to the ceremonies.  Speaking of ties and reenactments here is a replica of the last tie used to connect the Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Summit, Utah Territoy on May 10,1869.  The original was made of California Laurel (as was the replica).  The original burned in the San Francisco earthquake/fire in 1906.

The holes for the spikes were pre drilled but the dignitaries were either too drunk or too dandy to drive the last spike so it was done by a 22 year old fireman from the 119 (Union Pacific engine, the Jupiter was the Central Pacific engine).  The golden spike itself was never really driven.

The Original Golden Spike is in the Smithsonian and a number of other ceremonial spikes are scattered around the States.

But what I found very interesting was the telegraph lines.

These are the square telegraph poles, in keeping with the way the originals were produced.  They were tapered with a cross piece saddle notched into the pole and held with a bolt.

Here is a close up of the cross piece and even the insulators are correct.  The original insulators were called rams horns and were suspended under the cross piece.  It wasn’t until I got home and looked up close and saw that they got the bolt wrong.  It should have been square headed not hex.  Alas.

This is really out in the middle of nowhere.  I live on the south end of Great Salt Lake and this spot is on the north end of the lake (which is 80 miles long), then 21 miles from the main road.  But the real thrill was standing next to a live working steam locomotive.  At one point during the ceremonies it was moving slowly along the tracks and sounding its whistle.  I turned to my friend George and he was holding his chest, later he said he felt it through his entire body.  It was truly an amazing experience.

The heat, the steam, (I could hear the water boiling inside the boiler), the noise and the knowledge that at any moment the Union Pacific #119, not 10 feet away could violently explode and kill everyone within a 1/4 mile, in searing steam and pieces of jagged metal.  Later when one of the people that work on the train was talking, saying that the reproduction steam engines are different in that they are not riveted iron boilers but are welded steel making them safer.  I told him in the event of an explosion his new welded steel boiler the difference would be negligible.  That made him think.

The Park Service said that there would be a photograph of today’s re-enactment on their web site, but it wasn’t there yet.  All in all it was a great time, I picked up a souvenir, a UP brass baggage tag for my portmanteau, for my next trip to the Carson Valley.

Stephen