BRIGHAM CITY, Utah, Oct. 9, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — A 43-foot-plus-tall version of the golden spike has begun its whistle-stop tour to Utah to commemorate as never before the historic joining of the rails.
The four-story edifice debuts in Salt Lake City this month before finding its way home.
Brainchild of the Golden Spike Foundation, formed in 2019 for the 150th anniversary of the May 10, 1869, driving of the historic spike, the giant gold-leaf creation will anchor an under-construction Golden Spike Park just west of Brigham City.
But for some grain silos up north and the spires of the Brigham City Utah Temple, it will be the tallest structure in Box Elder County, Brigham City Mayor D.J. Bott confirmed.
The monolith is on a whistle-stop tour that began Thursday, Oct. 5, in Lexington, Kentucky, where the spike was built, commissioned by the foundation. Bott was there for the launch of the tour of the huge spike, which he said has an estimated price tag of $1 million.
“It’s reverential,” he said, with all four sides of the spike telling by inscription and carving the tale of the workers who built the transcontinental railroad.
In addition to the money for the 8,000-pound spike, the foundation plans to spend and is fundraising for another $2 million or more for the 8-acre Golden Spike Park, Bott said.
There the 43-footer will loom over Interstate-15 just west of Brigham City.
Not to be confused with the Golden Spike National Historic Park, one of Utah’s six national parks, at the site of the historic joining of the rails in 1869 at Promontory Point, some 40 miles west of Brigham City.
Grading and site preparation has just begun on the new park at Forest Street’s west end, where the giant spike will be raised in the spring of 2024, Bott said. Brigham City and the foundation jointly purchased the site, he said, known as Reeder’s Ranch.
“The spike is 43 feet tall, plus a fractional amount I couldn’t recite, which the foundation decided on as the square root of 1869,” Bott explained.
The foundation is lead by Doug Foxley, Tremonton native and a retired executive of Union Pacific Railroad, builders of the transcontinental railroad with Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860s at the direction of Abraham Lincoln.
The giant spike passed through Kansas City, Missouri, on Sunday, Oct. 8, and is headed for Council Bluffs, Iowa, by Saturday, Oct. 14. The tour also includes stops Oct. 15 in North Platte, Nebraska; Oct. 17 in Golden, Colorado; and Oct. 21, in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
The spike will be in Rocks Springs, Wyoming, early Oct. 23 before spending Oct. 23-24 at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City, where festivities are planned.
Its journey begins again in April 2024 after winter storage in Utah County.
“We couldn’t find a building large enough in Box Elder County,” Bott said.
The route can be tracked on the Golden Spike Foundation’s website, spike150.org.
