Railroad History in Utah

May 7: A sunny day greeted us as we passed through Idaho on I-84, then south into Utah toward the looming Wasatch Range.

After checking into Willard Bay State Park, we began our sightseeing and search for groceries. We soon learned that, although Willard Bay appears to be part of the Great Salt Lake, it’s actually a fresh water reservoir surrounded by a 15 mile rock dike. It was created for farm irrigation purposes and fresh water recreation.

This state park has a very nice campground, a small marina and public beach where we watched the sun set over the Promontory Mountains to the west.

The closest town is Brigham City. It has all the urban conveniences, including a Walmart with groceries. We found some nice old buildings, spring flowers and a beautiful old courthouse downtown.

We celebrated Mothers Day with a phone call to Ron’s Mom in Yakima and an excellent Asian lunch at the Beijing Buffet.  The next day we had lunch at the historic Idle Isle Cafe, which has been serving good food downtown since 1921.

Brigham Young himself selected the site for Box Elder Tabernacle.

Brigham City has a very interesting (and haunted) railroad depot. The volunteer docent showed us around and told us all about its history.

She also tipped us off that the annual re-enactment of the driving of the golden spike at Promontory was coming up on Monday. That’s where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads met on May 10, 1869 to create the first continuous cross-country rail line. Ron loves railroad history, so we extended our stay for two days to attend the ceremony.

It was another sunny day as we and a couple thousand other railroad fans assembled at the Golden Spike National Historic Site at Promontory Summit. Members of the Golden Spike Association were dressed in 1860s period clothing.

A high school band played marches and the two historic (replica) engines chugged down the tracks to meet at the ceremonial location. The Central Pacific wood-burning Jupiter approached from the west and met the Union Pacific’s coal-burning #119.

A 20-star American flag was raised, the band played the Star Spangled Banner, and speeches followed. Finally, the driving of the golden spike was re-enacted, complete with the original speeches and a telegrapher pounding out the messages via telegraph to all parts of the Country. The final message was “DONE”.

In addition to the historic re-enactment photograph (below), a group photo of everyone who wanted to be included with the two engines was also taken. Bonnie and I got into that one and it will be available on the National Park Service’s website. Pretty cool. It was quite an occasion and we were glad we stayed.

We heard about another historic railroad depot in Ogden (Union Station), so we stopped by to see it. It has been restored and is now the impressive Utah State Railroad Museum complete with several full-size engines and rail cars. The depot also houses the Browning Firearms Museum. We’re not gun enthusiasts, but found it fascinating. It includes many original guns or prototypes designed by Browning in his Ogden shop. Many of his designs were bought and manufactured by Winchester, Colt, Remington and others. Browning was an automobile collector and a dozen or so of his antique restored cars are also housed in the building, from a 1901 single-cylinder Oldsmobile to a 1930 sixteen cylinder Cadillac. All are in beautiful condition and are driven regularly in local parades, etc.

We planned to cross the mountains to Price, Utah on May 11, but another nasty storm was brewing with colder temperatures, lots of rain and more snow for the mountains. So, we moved about 90 miles south to the town of Springville, in hopes of finding “spring” there. No such luck! The pass we need to take to Price is about 7,400 ft. in elevation, so we’re waiting a couple days for the storm to pass and snow to melt before continuing on.