Golden Spike Cultural Landscape Report

One of the first Euro-American explorers to cross the Promontory Summit was Jedediah Smith, who in late February, 1826, traveled around the head of Bear River Bay and across the Promontories. Four members of his party then explored the Great Salt Lake for nearly a month, trying to locate its outlet. Mountain man Jim Bridger, credited as the first Euro-American to see the Great Salt Lake, may also have crossed Promontory Summit in 1824 when he spent the autumn trapping beaver on the Bear River (Morgan 1964:143, 182-185; Goetzmann 1966:70). By the early 1840s, with the close of the fur trade, mountain men were moving elsewhere: Kit Carson scattered to New Mexico and Bridger took up residency at his fort and trading post at Black's Fork. Utah, and in particular the Promontory area, remained open lands (Stegner 1942:247). In 1841, the first emigrant wagon train party to blaze a trail west to California, the Bartleson-Bidwell party, also passed through the Promontory area. The trail that the Bartleson Bidwell party established across northern Utah was rarely used again. The majority of pioneers crossed southern Utah instead. Nevertheless — without maps or familiarity with landmarks — the hardy emigrant party had proven that it was possible to reach California by crossing the desert and mountains (Goetzmann 1966:171). In this way, the Bartleson-Bidwell trail forecast the later significance of the Promontory area to transportation in the nineteenth century

Prior to the completion of the transcontinental railroad, a wagon road traversed the summit. The road is marked on a January 14, 1869 map prepared by a "Special Pacific Railroad Commission appointed by the Secretary of the Interior." Little if anything else is known about this road (Anderson and Ketterson 1976).

In July of 1847 the Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley. There, Brigham Young and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints began to build their new community, and by 1850, the Territory of Utah had been established. Because of Young's leadership, the Mormons played a significant role in the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in Utah (Bain 1999:494-495, 503, 532-535, 552, 620). Moreover, because of the degree of early Mormon settlement near the Salt Lake Valley by the 1850s, the desire to tap the commercial potential of northwestern Utah helped to feed the competition that developed during the construction of the transcontinental railroad.