Golden Spike Cultural Landscape Report

Small-Scale Features

The importance of small-scale features during the intensive construction period is poorly understood. It is likely that many such features would have been present at campsites, including enclosures for livestock, platforms for activity areas, benches and tables for use by construction crews. Although historical photographs illustrate some of these types of resources, none remain visible in the landscape today.

Small-scale features associated with the operation of the railroad would have included switches and signals as well as railroad milepost markers. In addition, as the lands adjacent to the railroad were settled, private landowners erected fences to demarcate private property boundaries, fields and pastures. Historical photographs and remnant fences show that juniper post and barbed-wire fences were commonly used in the vicinity of the NHS.

The most recent small-scale features added to the NHS during the historical period are those associated with memorializing historical events, including signs and monuments. Both the concrete monument erected by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company and the replica sign marking the end of the ten miles of track laid in a day, date to the later historical period.

Summary

With the exception of a few segments of fencing erected by private landowners, none of the small-scale features associated with either the construction or operation of the railroad are present today. However, the two features associated with memorialization of historical events do remain and can be counted as contributing landscape features. These include the Southern Pacific Monument (LCS #63254) and the "Ten Mile" sign (LCS #100540).

Noncontributing small-scale features present in the landscape today include the interpretive and traffic signage and the post and wire and electric fencing used in some areas to mark the boundary of the NHS.