Where the tracks met

After our visit to Malad and Samaria we decided to take a different way home.  We went west a bit and then south into Utah to the north side of the Great Salt Lake to see the Golden Spike, where the rails from the east met up with the rails from the west in 1869.  For the first time there was now a transcontinental railroad.

This monument had recently been renovated.

We walked through the visitor center to the north side after watching an informational film and viewing displays about this great event.  This is the spot where those rails first met.  I was impressed that the memorial rail was made from laurel wood.

Once they had their big celebration, this laurel wood rail was moved to a safe spot during the years of being an active railroad line.  The mile and a half section of track is now a part of history and the reenactment of the meeting is held each year on the date when the train engines first met face to face.

This is a barren place.  These are the tracks going east.  Not too far east of this point is a space rocket plant, Thiokol (ATK).  Read more about here.

And this side stretches west.   That is a viewing stand on the right.  The railroad was eventually moved south where a straight wooden trestle railroad line was laid across the Great Salt Lake.