Promontory Summit sits north of the Great Salt Lake in Box Elder County, Utah, an unlikely crossroads for history. The nearest town is Corinne, a few miles to the east-southeast. The site seems remote today, and it was even more so in 1869, accessible only by the very rails being celebrated. The Central Pacific had pushed east from California, its workforce predominantly Chinese immigrants who blasted tunnels through the Sierra Nevada. The Union Pacific had laid track westward from Omaha, employing largely Irish laborers. They met here, in the high desert, where sagebrush and wind were the only witnesses to one of the nineteenth century's most consequential moments.

By the early twentieth century, the Golden Spike ceremony had faded from national memory. The original tracks were bypassed in 1904 when the Lucin Cutoff crossed the Great Salt Lake itself, shortening the route by 43 miles. In 1942, the rails over Promontory Summit were pulled up for the World War II scrap metal drive, the event marked by a ceremonial "undriving" of a spike. Local residents erected a marker in 1943, but the site seemed destined for obscurity. Then Bernice Gibbs Anderson began her campaign. Starting with local history articles in 1926, she spent decades advocating for preservation. As president of the Golden Spike Association of Box Elder County, she organized the first re-enactment in 1952. Her persistence paid off when Congress authorized federal protection in 1965.

The park began small, just the junction area, but expanded through land swaps and acquisitions to encompass miles of the original railroad grade. Though the 1869 rails are long gone, rebuilt track now runs from the summit to a train storage building, designed as an authentic representation of the original roadbed. The most spectacular attractions are working replicas of the two locomotives that stood nose-to-nose at the ceremony: the Central Pacific's Jupiter and Union Pacific No. 119. Built by O'Connor Engineering Laboratories in Costa Mesa, California, these engines face each other on summer Saturdays, recreating the historic moment for visitors who make the pilgrimage to this remote corner of Utah.

On May 10, 1969, exactly one hundred years after the original ceremony, 28,000 visitors flooded the newly completed Visitor Center. Bernice Gibbs Anderson, then in her nineties, was among them. That year, the railroad grade earned designation as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. The High Iron Company ran a steam-powered excursion from New York City to Promontory, carrying passengers including John Wayne for the final leg into Salt Lake City. The Union Pacific sent a display train. The Army Transportation Corps dispatched a steam special from Fort Eustis, Virginia. The ceremony that once united a continent was uniting it again in memory.

For decades, the standard narrative overlooked those who actually built the railroad. More than 12,000 Chinese workers laid track for the Central Pacific, comprising 80% of its workforce. Eight Chinese men laid the final rail from the east. Three of them, Ging Cui, Wong Fook, and Lee Shao, lived to ride in the 50th anniversary parade in 1919. Yet at the 1969 centennial, no Chinese representatives spoke at the dedication of a plaque honoring their labor. In 2019, the 150th anniversary brought intentional focus to this history. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao spoke at the ceremony. A Chinese Arch now stands in the park, and a plaque honors the workers who carved the path through impossible terrain. The site was redesignated as Golden Spike National Historical Park that year, recognizing its broader significance.