Promontory Summit

Golden Spike

Promontory Summit marks the site where the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed May 10, 1869, from Omaha to Sacramento, but not "from the Missouri river to the Pacific" as called for by the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. Western Pacific completed the final leg from Sacramento to San Francisco Bay on September 6, 1869, with the last spike at the Mossdale bridge spanning the San Joaquin River near Lathrop, California. Passengers had to cross the Missouri River by boat between Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska, until the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge was built in March 1872. In the meantime, the first uninterrupted coast-to-coast railroad was established in August 1870 at Strasburg, Colorado, with the completion of the Denver extension of the Kansas Pacific Railway.