RAILROADS, THEN (1869) AND NOW (2010)

On May 10, 1869, the first transcontinental railroad in the United States was completed with a golden spike driven in Promontory, Utah. Dreams, planning, dedication and hard work accomplished this event. One book in the Bullis Collection that was published by the United States War Department between 1855 and 1861 tells of the beginnings of this monumental project. It's spine title is: Report of explorations and surveys for economical route for a railroad. The full title reads:

Reports of explorations and surveys to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean / made under the direction of the Secretary of War, in 1853-5, according to acts of Congress of March 3, 1853, May 31, 1854, and August 5, 1854.

This book is available online (and in the Bullis Room, of course) and we recommend it to you for your reading list, as it gives a greater appreciation of the Utah event and of railroads in general.

And speaking of appreciating railroads, the engineers in the Bullis family in 1869 would have been interested in the news from Promontory, Utah because it fulfilled the hopes inherent in their library book. Today, they would be equally interested in this country's talk of high speed rail as well as a local county rail line that was officially opened this week on May 10, exactly 141 years after the driving of the Golden Spike.