From The New York Times, 135 years ago:
Promontory, Utah, Monday, May 10 — The long-looked-for moment has arrived. The construction of the Pacific Railroad is un fait accompli. The inhabitants of the Atlantic seaboard and the dwellers on the Pacific slopes are henceforth emphatically one people. Your correspondent is writing on Promontory Summit amid the deafening shouts of the multitude, with the tick, tick, of the telegraph close to his ear.
*****Announcement in Washington of the Completion of the Road- Scene in the Telegraph Office
Special Dispatch to the New York Times
Washington, Monday, May 10 — The completion of the Pacific Railroad has monopolized public attention here to-day to the exclusion of everything else. The feeling is one of hearty rejoicing at the completion of this great work. There were no public observances, but the arrangements made by the telegraph company to announce the completion of the road simultaneously with the driving of the last spike were perfect. At 2:20 this afternoon, Washington time, all the telegraph offices in the country were notified by the Omaha telegraph office to be ready to receive the signals corresponding to the blows of the hammer that drove the last spike in the last rail that united New York and San Francisco with a band of iron. Accordingly Mr. Tinker, Manager of the Western Union Telegraph Office in this city, placed a magnetic bell-sounder in the public office of that Company, corner Fourteenth-street and the avenue, connected the same with the main lines, and notified the various offices that he was ready. New-Orleans instantly responded, the answer being read from the bell-taps. New-York did the same. At 2:27 P.M., Promontory Point, 2,400 miles west of Washington, said to the people congregated in the various telegraph offices:
“Almost ready. Hats off; prayer is being offered.”
A silence for the prayer ensued. At 2:40 the bell tapped again, and the office at the Point saPOSTID:
“We have got done praying. The spike is about to be presented.”
Chicago replied:
“We understand; all are ready in the East.”
Promontory Point: “All ready now; the spike will be driven. The signal will be three dots for the commencement of the blows.”
For a moment the instrument was silent; then the hammer of the magnet tapped the bell. “One, two, three,” the signal; another pause of a few seconds, and the lightning came flashing eastward, vibrating over 2,400 miles between the junction of the two roads and Washington, and the blows of the hammer upon the spike were measured instantly in telegraphic accents on the bell here. At 2:47 P.M., Promontory Point gave the signal, “Done,” and the Continent was spanned with iron.