Item Detail
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30335
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1
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1
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English
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The Dash to Promontory ; Postscript : The Golden Spike and Me
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Utah Historical Quarterly
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Fall 2017
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85
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4
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Salt Lake City, UT
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University of Illinois Press
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310-323
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The driving of the last spike in the Pacific Railroad at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, was the final act in a drama of competing railroad construction that has no parallel in the history of American railroads. Most historians of the Pacific Railroad have dealt with the great railroad race, but none has appreciated the extent to which it focused on the Promontory Mountains, where the last spike was to be driven. The fascinating details of construction activities in these mountains are revealed principally in the voluminous dispatches sent to their editors by reporters covering the final stages of the race. Much of this history remains buried today in the files of the San Francisco and Salt Lake City newspapers.