Promontory, Utah
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Promontory is a location in Box Elder County, Utah, centered approximately at , at an elevation of 1494 meters (4902 feet) above sea level. [1] It is 51km (32 miles) west of Brigham City, Utah and 107km (66 miles) northwest of Salt Lake City, and north of the Great Salt Lake.
Promontory Summit is notable as the location where the United States first Transcontinental Railroad was completed on May 10, 1869, with the driving of the Golden Spike, joining the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads. Promontory was the site of a temporary city during and shortly after the construction of the railroad, but this was then dismantled, and since then Promontory has had no permanent population. Since 1957 it has been preserved as part of the Golden Spike National Historic Site.
One of the fact overlooked in the construction the Transcontinental Railroad was the prominent role played by Chinese workers who unfortunately are not seen in the historic pictures at Promontory.
Today, Promontory is also the home of the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster. After the SRBs are retrieved from the ocean following a launch, they are shipped by train back to Thiokol.
- Note: The location of the Golden Spike is sometimes erroneously (especially colloquially) identified as Promontory Point. However, this is a different location at the southern tip of a peninsula in the Great Salt Lake, and a point on the Lucin Cutoff, which was to follow later.
