Golden Spike & Corinne, Utah & the Spiral Jetty
Kathleen & I took a day away from following the Lincoln Highway for a little bit of good old American history. A bit north of Ogden, Utah just past Corrinne, Utah is where on May 10, 1869 the Union and Central Pacific Railroads joined their rails
at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory and forged the destiny of a nation by the completion of of the first Transcontinental
Railroad. We spent a few hours at
Golden Spike National Historic Site imagining what a revolutionary paradigm shift occurred when our nation had the ability to transport our citizens and transports goods in relative safety and in a fraction of the time that wagon trains could afford.
On our way there we stopped in the little community of Corinne, Utah (named for the founders daughter) which was Utah's own "Hell on Wheels", first exclusively non Mormon community, home of the first Protestant church in Utah which was set up to take economic advantage of the joining of the railroads. It is still a little town still proud of its heritage and a place to get a pretty darn good corny dog at the town's only gas station/convenience mart the Sinclair Station (yes with the green Sinclair Dino).
From the Golden Spike we took a side trip to the northern shores of the Great Salt lake to see the Spiral Jetty: an earthwork sculpture constructed in 1970 by artist Robert Smithson. It is on the edge of the lake, sometimes visible and sometimes underwater. There was a fairly good sized crowd there on their annual celebration of this work. We also waded in the Great Salt Lake (when I say "we", I mean Kathleen waded & I took some pictures).
For more info on any of our sites of interest refer to the links below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinne,_Utah#History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Jetty
Thanks one & all. If you would like to see our Lincoln Highway travel map, the following link gives you a rough idea of our route: https://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/map/
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