The Golden Spike: How a Photograph Celebrated the Transcontinental Railroad

The Golden Spike: How a Photograph Celebrated the Transcontinental Railroad — page 6 — becoming obvious that simple words and drawings were no longer enough to portray major news events The photographic medium which had been invented earlier in the century also had to play its part In 1867 two years before the completion of the first transcontinental railroad a Philadelphia magazine declared Nothing seems beyond the reach of photography It is the railway and the telegraph of art The telegraph detects and catches the thief and so does photography The railways carry us to points afar and so does photography in fact it does more As late as March 1869 no meeting place had been established So the two track-laying operations kept going Finally they passed right by each other in the Utah wilderness Both companies made a lot of money for each mile of track they laid So their directors decided to keep construction going until Congress chose the place where the two lines of track would connect In the words of Grenville M Dodge the Union Pacific’s chief engineer the two lines were now running side by side and in some places one line was on a raised embankment right above the other THE RAILROAD AND AMERICAN INDIANS As the Union Pacific wound its way westward in the 1860s it helped to bring more and more whites into the Indian-inhabited lands lying west of the Mississippi River It disrupted and forever changed the way American Indians had lived for thousands of years At first Plains tribes mostly left the railroad workers alone But a series of battles between U S soldiers and Plains tribes began in the mid-1860s And as the railroad pushed westward warriors harassed the railroad workers Small groups of Sioux and Cheyenne raided work sites and stole horses cows and other livestock They also killed some railroad surveyors who had pushed ahead of the work crews to scout out the best routes for the tracks In the meantime the Union Pacific had a tribal ally the Pawnee who were bitter enemies of the Sioux The company often hired Pawnee men for protection against other tribes In return the railroad allowed Pawnee people to ride the work trains for free Also in October 1866 company executives hired some Pawnee to stage a mock raid on a train to entertain politicians and other dignitaries riding inside

The Golden Spike: How a Photograph Celebrated the Transcontinental Railroad — page 7 — Russell photographed Shoshone Indians who had given the Union Pacific right of way to land in Wyoming Because of the closeness of the two lines the tens of thousands of workers involved along with their tents wagons animals and equipment covered several square miles For a distance of 30 miles 48 km to the west of the small town of Corinne Utah the Salt Lake Deseret News reported the two giant camps present the appearance of a mighty army As far as the eye can reach are to be seen almost a continuous line of tents wagons and men Russell and the Central Pacific’s head photographer Alfred A Hart worked almost constantly to record images of the vast scene According to historian Stephen E Ambrose the two men were inspired to do some of their best work here They were up before dawn setting their cameras getting their plates ready taking pictures through the day and keeping at it until the light faded Everyone who was there knew that except for the war there had never before been in North America and never would be again a sight like this one

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