Golden Spike Cultural Landscape Report

Cluster Arrangement

The importance of clustering varies from one period of significance to the next. All of the historical clusters correspond to areas of concentrated human activity. During the period of intense construction, clustering occurred in the form of numerous campsites, supply camps and temporary townsites such as Dead Fall, all of which contained a variety of temporary shelters used to house and feed workers as well as draft animals. Along the segment of railroad bracketed by Golden Spike National Historic Site, archaeological evidence indicates that campsites were located in close proximity to long-term construction projects such as in the vicinity of the Big Fill and the Big Trestle. Today, the remains of these clusters occur as archaeological sites.

After completion of the transcontinental railroad, the only permanent buildings were located at Promontory Station. When the last spike was driven on May 10th, 1869, the area contained about a dozen canvas wall tents on the north side of the railroad grade. Within months however , a series of small buildings — some little more than tents with wooden storefronts — had been established on the north side of the transcontinental line. Over time, the character of the town changed, from a large number of semi-permanent buildings during the first several years after completion of the railroad, to fewer buildings of a more permanent nature in later years. Included in the cluster were community buildings such as the school and commercial buildings such as the Golden Hotel (later used as the Houghton Store). For the majority of the historic period, however, Promontory Station represented the single major settlement cluster directly associated with the railroad.

On adjacent lands outside the railroad right-of-way, the clustering of buildings and structures occurred in association with farming and ranching. Generally, farmstead complexes consisted of a dwelling and a variety of outbuildings usually to store equipment and shelter livestock. During the first decades after completion of the line, the area contained relatively few ranches and few ranch headquarters complexes. These early ranches were dependent upon use of the open range to support their ranching endeavors. However, this settlement pattern gradually changed as more and smaller ranch operators and farmers gradually bought railroad property or claimed homesteads on open and unclaimed lands. The numbers of small subsistence homesteads increased during the first two decades of the 1900s when dry farming was promoted throughout the West. However, the drought and depression of the 1920s and 1930s drove many people from their small farms and resulted in a reduction of number of farm and ranch complexes within the viewshed of the NHS.

Summary

Although clustering was an important landscape characteristic at various times during the historical period, the historic clusters are no longer readily evident within the landscape. Today, most are represented as archaeological sites (discussed below). The only building cluster currently present within the NHS is the modern noncontributing park service administrative/interpretive complex at the Last Spike Site.