- A 43-foot golden spike sculpture will be permanently displayed at This Is The Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City.
- The sculpture, designed by Douwe Blumberg, features stories of railroad laborers and innovators.
- Initial plans for a Brigham City state monument stalled due to logistical challenges.
SALT LAKE CITY — A massive, 43-foot monument of the golden spike, a revered symbol of the transcontinental railroad that was completed in Utah 157 years ago, will have a permanent home in Utah's capital city.
The massive replica will be displayed at This Is The Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City, the Golden Spike Foundation announced Friday. The organization, which commissioned the art piece in 2021, says it is still piecing together where in the park it will be installed and when it will be available to visitors.
However, it fit the core areas of focus that the organization wanted in the piece's forever home, which are visibility, accessibility, public reach and educational impact, said Doug Foxley, chairman of Golden Spike Foundation.
"This truly is the right place for the Golden Spike Monument," he said in a statement. "After a great deal of thought and deliberation, we believe This Is The Place is the best place for this monument and the stories it was created to tell."
Kentucky-based artist Douwe Blumberg designed the piece, which was first wheeled into Utah in 2023. His spike features many stories engraved onto its four panels.
Blumberg said he wanted to fit every possible angle into his design, leading to the "Wedding of the Rails" at Promontory Summit in May 10, 1869.
These include the diverse laborers of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads, which run along two sides, with nods to Chinese and Irish immigrants, as well as Civil War veterans and many others who built the line.
Its other half depicts the innovators, inventors and new technology that arose during the same period, and the impact the line and Western migration had on Native American communities and the country's future.
"I'm hoping — because it is so multifaceted — that people (take) away all kinds of messages," he said at the time.
The foundation intended to make the 8,000-pound sculpture the centerpiece of a new park off of I-15 in Brigham City, less than 40 miles from Promontory Summit.
Renderings of the park were unveiled in 2024, when the park had received a $1.5 million donation and a $2 million allocation from the Utah Legislature. That's after lawmakers approved the designation of what was to be the Golden Spike State Monument.
While the organization hoped to have the park ready by 2025, the plan ran into several hurdles. The foundation, Army Corps of Engineers and Brigham City completed multiple studies and determined that it would be difficult to pull off the project at the site, Golden Spike Foundation president Robyn Kremer said in a statement to KSL.
"We ultimately determined it was not feasible without significant additional fundraising that could cover unforeseen and rising building costs," she added.
That led to a search for alternative locations, which ended at This Is The Place Heritage Park, 2601 E. Sunnyside Ave.
Kremer believes the park, which attracted approximately 500,000 visits last year, including 46,000 school children, is the perfect location to expand public education, storytelling and community engagement regarding the transcontinental railroad's place in U.S. and Utah history.
"We are excited about this lasting legacy this project will create," she added. "This monument was created to honor the people whose determination, sacrifice and hard work connected a nation. We are thrilled that future generations will be able to experience these stories in a place dedicated to preserving and sharing Utah's history."
