The Golden Spike Disco

"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt."  I've been a typical tourist over the years, buying T-shirts at so-called famous places.  But they quickly become plain old T-shirts, and one winds up throwing on a shirt without noting what's written on it. 

So I sat down at the breakfast table this morning wearing a T-shirt that said "Golden Spike" in large block letters. Under that was the image of two locomotives facing each other.  Also an image of a railroad spike, used to hold the steel rails to the wooden cross-ties.  The shirt attracted some curiosity, and I thought back to the weird place where I got the shirt.

The locomotives on the shirt represent the historic meeting of two track-laying companies back in 1869.  In an ambitious project to connect the USA by rail from coast to coast,  one company worked its way westward from St. Louis, and the other worked its way through the immense Sierra Nevada mountain chain starting from California.  According to my 6th grade history book,  the two tracks met at what is now Ogden, Utah. 

When the very last connecting tie was nailed in,  a Golden Spike was used,  with much ceremony.  There is a famous old photo of the occasion,  in typical Civil-War era black-and-white,  of workers grouped around the two locomotives,  and some official-looking folks posing with The Spike in the Center.

The story was told very colorfully in that history book,  and quite a few others, and gave me a hankering to see the historic spot.  Well I guess it was only a small hankering, because I waited 45 years to go there,  and only then because something else was going on.

It was summertime 2005, and the International Barbershop Harmony Association was having their annual worldwide competition in Salt Lake City.  They leased out the Conference Center for the occasion.  This huge 21,000-seat auditorium was the home base for the legendary Mormon Tabernacle Choir,  so it was an inspiring setting for the best barbershop choruses in the world. 

I got on a plane with an equally-interested friend, and we stayed for 4 days in a downtown motel, enjoyed the utter cleanliness and order of Salt Lake City,  and the utter beauty of the musical performances at the Conference Center.

But somewhere, approximately 50 miles north of Salt Lake City was a place called Ogden, Utah -- which, according to my 6th grade history book was where I would find the old railroad track,  the Golden Spike,  and whatever tourist-y things might accompany it.  I envisioned round-the-clock security guards at the location of the Golden Spike.  I envisioned a Golden Spike Hotel, a Golden Spike Park,  a Golden Spike Pancake House,  a Golden Spike Disco.....

Heading north one afternoon in our rent-a-car,  a local Utah road map gave me my first hint that there might not be a Golden Spike Disco.   The closer details revealed that Ogden, Utah was a good ten miles to the EAST of the famous meeting spot.  After making the appropriate left turn off the main highway,  we found ourselves heading west on a much smaller road In the Middle of Nowhere as they say,  with Ogden Utah getting further and further behind us. 

I thought to myself,  Surely we would reach the crest of some high hill,  and suddenly GoldenSpikeLand would open up before us.  It was around 4:30 in the afternoon, and surely the summertime dinner crowd was loading up all those restaurants.

At 4:45 we descended through a scorched-brown vista,  miles and miles of sagebrush and weeds,  and saw a solitary small building down in the distant desert valley.  According to a dusty little road sign, we had reached our destination. 

This little hut was the entirety of the Golden Spike Tourist Trap.  It had one employee, selling T-shirts and books,  and she was preparing to close the shop at 5:00.   We were her last sales of the day,  and we asked, with bated breath,

"Where's the Golden Spike?" 

I almost asked where were the Security Guards for the Golden Spike,  but by now I sensed something amiss,  as if the Security Guard question would sound ridiculous.

She said that the famous railroad meeting point was "right out there",  and she point toward  a hardly-visible railroad track about 100 feet past the back door.  And she went on to say that this stretch of track had been unused for over 70 years.   When first built,  it taken a roundabout route, circumventing a large body of water somewhere in Utah.  Eventually the technology improved, and they built a bridge and track over the lake, a more direct route.  

"But what about the Golden Spike?"

"Aw, they removed that spike a few days after they nailed it in.   It's in some museum someplace", been there for 130 years now."  She answered the question sympathetically,  and I felt that she'd given this disappointing news to others before me.

We chatted a little more with the shop lady,  watched her close up for the day, and were free to go back and check out the railroad track for as long as we wanted.  Which was about ten minutes.   I pictured the two locomotives, all those people in the photogragh long gone,  looked around at the exact same desert hills that they looked on back in 1869...

...and that was it.  The Golden Spike is actually located in the Stamford Museum in California, and I'll surely never go there.  It turned out that the site itself was the most important thing, and in hindsight I am quite glad to have gone there.  The Spike would have been a nice touch,  but obviously I misunderstood the whole situation.

My T-shirt, which I'm wearing right now as I type this,  has an actual image of the Golden Spike, to remind me of what I didn't see.  So the shirt is a bit misleading -- perhaps I'm doing a service here,  providing a word of warning, for those millions of history buffs considering a visit to "Ogden, Utah",  that they'd better plan a few extra things to do.