The two engines were then moved up until they touched and a bottle of wine poured over the last rail as a libation. The trains of the respective roads were then run over the connecting link and back to their own lines. Speeches and a banquet closed the occasion.
In the Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento hangs a large oil painting of the meeting of the two engines. The artist having inserted actual portraits of many of the more prominent officials of the two lines who participated in the ceremonies.
By previous arrangement, the strokes on the final spikes were to be signaled over all the wires of the several telegraph companies through the United States, business being suspended for this purpose. First the message was sent over the wires "Almost ready. Hats off; prayer is being offered." Then "We have got done praying; the spike is about to be presented." Seven minutes later "All ready now; the spike will soon be driven." The signal will be three dots for the commencement of the blows. Connection being made between the hammers and the wires, the blows on the spikes were flashed over practically the whole telegraph system of the United States. At 2:47 P.M. Washington time, 12 M. Promontory local time, came the signal "Done" and the bells of Washington, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and hundreds of other cities and towns announced that the American continent had been spanned, that through rail communication was established, never to be broken, that the Union Pacific Railroad was completed.
The formal announcement to President Grant and through the Press Associations to every inhabitant of the civilized world, was couched in the following language:
Promontory Summit, Utah, May 10th, 1869.
"The last rail is laid, the last spike driven. The Pacific Railroad is completed. The point of junction is ten hundred and eighty-six miles west of the Missouri River and six hundred and ninety miles east of Sacramento City."
Leland Stanford,
Central Pacific Railroad.
T. C. Durant,
Sidney Dillon,
John Duff, Union Pacific Railroad.
No sooner were the ceremonies complete than there was a rush made to obtain souvenirs. In ignorance of the fact that the "Last Tie" had been taken up and an ordinary one substituted, the relic hunters carried off the substitute piecemeal. In fact some half dozen "last ties" were so taken in the first six months after the roads were completed.
An odd coincidence occurred at the closing ceremonies. The rail on the east was brought forward by the Union Pacific laborers—Europeans, that on the west by Chinese, both gangs having Americans as bosses. Consequently here were Europe, Asia, and America joining in the work, the Americans dominating.
Next morning the Union Pacific Railroad brought in from the East half a dozen passenger coaches for the Central Pacific Railroad, these being attached to the special train of Governor Stanford when he was returning to California, constituting the first through equipment.