Golden railroad spike movie#

Max Chang (left) and Doug Foxley (right) are part of the Spike 150 commission that organizing events for the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad. That speech offended Choy and others in the Chinese community, “To add what I call the great Salt Lake salt to the wound, John Volpy, the Secretary of Transportation at the time, then gave a speech which basically said, ‘Who but Americans could lay 10 miles of track in one day? Who but Americans could dig tunnels through the solid granite of the Sierras?”

Golden railroad spike movie#

Some people believe the agenda became too tight because of the appearance of western movie actor John Wayne at the event, Chang said. But their time was inexplicably cut from the schedule. “The Tribune wrote they finally had their day of glory.”įifty years later, in 1969 at the 100th anniversary, Philip Choy, the then-president of the Chinese Historical Society of America, expected to get time to recognize Chinese laborers and present a commemorative plaque. “These Chinese railroad workers were actually three of the eight Chinese railroad workers who laid a ceremonious last tie in the 1869 celebration,” said Max Chang, a board member of the Spike 150 Commission coordinating this year’s celebration. In 1919, during the 50th anniversary of the completion of the railroad, a parade in Ogden featured three former Chinese workers: Ging Cul, Wong Fook and Lee Cho. They didn’t bother to collect bodies or search for them. “So (their employers) didn’t record the names of those who died. “They were thought of as just another tool,” Kwan said. They were beaten, paid less and had to pay for their own food, unlike white workers. Ging Cul, Wong Fook and Lee Cho, three former railroad workers, are part of an Ogden parade for the 50th anniversary of the Golden Spike.Įven so, the Chinese laborers’ hard work didn’t earn them much respect from their employers. They came to the United States from parts of China experiencing war and poverty and did the jobs that few wanted to do, according to the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project. Tens of thousands of Chinese laborers are believed to have worked for the Central Pacific Railroad in the creation of the transcontinental railroad. Others are still struggling to bring their part of that history to the forefront.Ĭhinese Laborers | The Native Americans | The Intersection of Religion and Social Change Some will commemorate the unifying vision of the railroad and what it did to connect East and West in the years after the Civil War. And celebrations erupted on both coasts, as well as on Promontory Summit. With each blow, a letter was tapped into the first transcontinental telegraph. On May 10, 1869, the Union Pacific Railroad from the East and the Central Pacific Railroad from the West joined together with a spike on a summit north of the Great Salt Lake.

This weekend, hundreds of thousands of people will gather to mark the completion of the transcontinental railroad in Utah 150 years ago.