Completion

Golden Spike

Union Pacific 119 train model with tender car

Jupiter train model with tender car.

Replica of the Ceremonial Last Spike at Promontory, Utah, May 10, 1869.

Wooden chip cut from a railroad tie, Promontory, Utah, 1869.

Traveling west with his mother in June 1869, eight-year-old Hart F. Farwell stopped at Promontory, Utah, to cut a chip from a railroad tie at the site of th.

In Popular Culture

Each line hired their own photographer to document the building of the line and celebrate the company’s efforts. The Union Pacific sent photographer Andrew J. Russell to capture the line from Omaha, while Alfred A. Hart documented the construction of the Central Pacific as it crossed the Sierra. Russel’s stereocards were published as “The Great West Illustrated in a Series of Photographic Views Across the Continent” while Hart’s "Scenes in the Sierra Nevada" depicted the CPRR crossing the mountains. Widely disseminated as stereograph cards, the images achieved a three-dimensional effect when viewed through a stereoscope. The stereoscope combined the left and right views on the stereograph card into one image, which gives the illusion of depth.

Stereograph, 1000 Mile Tree, from A.J. Russell's 'Scenery of the Union Pacific'

A process called 'wiggle stereoscopy' can mimic the stereoscope's 3-d effect.