Steam & Excursion > Defunct Railroad Museum - Corinne, Utah

We’ve seen some defunct tourist operations, now how about a defunct museum?

The Sons of Utah Pioneers opened the Railroad Village Museum (originally called the Golden Spike Railroad Museum) at Corinne, Utah on May 10, 1959 alongside the original grade of the Transcontinental Railroad (Corinne is 25 miles east of Promontory Summit, near Brigham City). The museum celebrated the achievement of the Transcontinental Railroad, and featured Southern Pacific 2-6-0 1744 and Union Pacific 2-8-0 6264 sitting nose-to-nose. There was also quite a selection of railroad equipment on display, including Union Pacific chair car 4414 and RPO 2314, an SP caboose, a pair of open air cars from the SLG&W, a wooden business car from Kennecott Copper, and a Bamberger interurban. Smaller displays were located in the two story UP depot from Honeyville, Utah, and inside several historic buildings gathered from around the area. The Golden Spike Ceremony was reenacted on a large stage every May 10th using plywood mock-ups of the Promontory engines. Much of the credit for starting the museum goes to the late Horace Sorensen of the SUP and Bernice Gibbs Anderson, a local historian.

When the Golden Spike National Historic Site was established at Promontory Summit, and a visitor’s center was built in 1969, people began to bypass Corinne to visit the actual site of the Golden Spike ceremony. The death knell for the Corinne Museum came in the mid 1970s when the National Park Service announced their plans to construct full size replica engines. Once they arrived, there wouldn’t be much reason for people to visit Corinne. The Railroad Village Museum soon fell into disrepair, and in 1979 the entire complex was moved lock, stock, and barrel to Heber City to became part of the Heber Creeper operation. SP 1744 was put back into service, along with some of the passenger equipment. The Honeyville depot was relocated and became the main Heber City depot for many years.

Today the equipment has been scattered across the country. UP 6264 and some of the passenger equipment is now at Boulder City, Nevada; the Bamberger interurban is owned by the Heber Valley Railroad; one of the SLG&W open cars went to Rio Vista Junction; the Kennecott business car is on the Sumpter Valley in Oregon; SP 1744 went to Texas, then to Colorado, and operated until recently on the San Luis & Rio Grande. The Honeyville depot is still in Heber, but sits unused on the old Heber Creeper property.

The photo shows UP 6264 at Corinne in 1969 – note that it’s left side cylinder is exposed for viewing. The UP RPO, chair cars, and one of the SLG&W open cars can be seen behind it.

The documents are photocopies from my collection. One show the original museum site (an ad that appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune) and the other shows the plywood locomtoive mockups with a boatload of incorrect information in the caption! (Corinne was NOT where the Golden Spike was driven, and the "Jupiter" worked for the Central Pacific, not Southern Pacific. CP didn't become part of SP until many years later.)

Jeff Terry



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/11 15:19 by CPengineer.

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Is the golden spike national historic site actually at the location on the old line, or is it still a little ways away?

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..

Mike,

The Golden Spike National Historic Site is comprised of 2,735 acres of land that includes the exact site where the transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit (which is also the location of the visitor's center). Much of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific grade in and out of Promontory, which includes some large fills, has also been preserved. I think that Corinne was chosen by the Sons of Utah Pioneers for the site of their railroad museum simply because it was close to the highway. I don't think they believed in 1959 that anyone would actually want to (or be willing to ) drive out to the actual Golden Spike site.

Jeff Terry

I see it's an ingrained "Old" habit to put "Old" in front of every loco number or name...

CPengineer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't think they believed
> in 1959 that anyone would actually want to (or be
> willing to ) drive out to the actual Golden Spike
> site.
>
> Jeff Terry

It's hard to believe even today that anyone would
be willing to drive out to the actual Golden Spike
site!

Driving through Texas can sometimes seem quicker!

Anyone (Jeff?) know how the Golden Spike National
Historic Park was established? Did the government
simply suggest and build it? Or was it initially
privately funded?

/Mitch

Bernice did it! I was going to write out the story, but I found this article from the Salt Lake Tribune that sums it up nicely:

GOLDEN SPIKE SITE WAS NEARLY FORGOTTEN

By Will Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune, 2002

A single determined individual can make a remarkable difference. When it comes to commemorating Utah's past, few people made more of a contribution than Bernice Anderson, whose tenacity and persistence helped create the Golden Spike National Historic Site.

Friday, thousands of railroad buffs will gather for the 30th time to celebrate the joining of the rails at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific met to create the transcontinental railroad.

Bernice Gibbs was born Aug. 5, 1900, and spent most of her life in Corinne, "the Berg on the Bear." Married at 18, she raised six children and reported on Box Elder County for The Salt Lake Tribune. A devoted historian, Anderson considered the desolation at Promontory Summit a national scandal. The historic spot was so poorly marked with a "lonely cement pyramid" that one visitor complained he could build a better monument in his back yard.

"It is the most neglected historical spot in our land," Bernice said. She wrote hundreds of letters to Congress, the president and Park Service officials to convince them to make Promontory a national historic monument. The question of why the Park Service was not doing more to preserve and promote the site had no answer, Bernice wrote. "At least not acceptable to me."

Many of the visitors to the forgotten spot would ask why Promontory had not been made a national monument. Others, Bernice said, asked "What! No beer?" Anderson was president of the Golden Spike Association when it began holding annual re-enactment ceremonies at Promontory on May 10, 1952.

"This is sacred soil, dedicated to the sacrifices of the thousands who labored in the great race to build the first transcontinental railway," she said in 1957. "Will it take its rightful place in the heritage and traditions of America, preserved and protected by a grateful government, or will it remain desolate and forgotten to sink into oblivion?"

Former National Park Service Historian Robert Utley recalls visiting Promontory in a battered government truck to evaluate the spot with Anderson in January 1960. Utley was astonished at the emptiness of the snow-covered hills and prairie surrounding the summit, which is actually flat.
"There was nothing there," he recalled. The track had been scrapped during World War II, leaving little evidence of the railroad. But nearby, the bed of the old road ran across the desert through cuts and fills, including the Big Fill where in two months 500 Mormon workers dumped 10,000 cubic yards of dirt to cross 500 feet of a 70-foot-deep valley.

On the way back to Brigham City, the truck slid off the icy road. Utley told Bernice, "I'm afraid you'll have to sit in the back if we're going to get out of here." It worked, and Anderson convinced Utley that Promontory was indeed a historic spot. Promontory "made the first serious and permanent breech in the frontier and established the process by which the entire frontier was to be demolished," Utley wrote. "Promontory Summit best illustrates the historical meaning, as well as the dramatic construction story, of the first transcontinental railroad."

Promontory became a national historic site under private ownership in 1957.

On July 30, 1965, Anderson finally won her battle when Congress agreed to make Promontory Summit a federal site with full funding. Anderson died in 1981, but thousands of dedicated railroaders will meet Friday to celebrate the 133rd anniversary of the driving the Golden Spike. Each one owes thanks to a dedicated and persistent woman, Bernice Gibbs Anderson.

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

Myself and three others attended the celebration held on May 10, 1969 when two replica locomotives (I think they were ex Virginia & Truckee 4-4-0's) were dragged into position by pick-up trucks for the ceremony. They had planned for a few hundred people, as I recall, and over 10,000 showed up.

Today, the exact replicas built by Chad O'Conner's company preside at the site. We attended the year they were unveiled and I have a photo of my wife and (very young) oldest daughter in the cab of the Jupiter. It was a neat day and very memorable with lots of folks in attendance.

The Lady mentioned in the above posts is truly a heroine for her efforts to get Promontory it's official recognition as a National Historic site. My hat is off to her memory. - Tom Dial

Mgoldman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> CPengineer Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I don't think they believed
> > in 1959 that anyone would actually want to (or
> be
> > willing to ) drive out to the actual Golden
> Spike
> > site.
> >
> > Jeff Terry
>
> It's hard to believe even today that anyone would
>
> be willing to drive out to the actual Golden Spike
>
> site!
>

I drove out there from Salt Lake City seven years ago. Yes, it's a long drive, but it was very worthwhile. What made the place so special is the total lack of development intruding on the site.

The Morton Thiokol plant on the way there is cool. They have a bunch of missiles and rockets on display outside.

I've been out to Promontory a couple of times-- the first time on a Sunday some time in the mid-'80s. Talk about desolate! I think my two friends and I were the only ones there besides the park ranger. I don't think the steam engines were even running that day. Jump ahead to May 10, 1994, the 125th anniversary of the joining of the rails, and I've ever seen so many people out in the middle of nowhere at one time!

davew833 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've been out to Promontory a couple of times--
> the first time on a Sunday some time in the
> mid-'80s. Talk about desolate! I think my two
> friends and I were the only ones there besides the
> park ranger. I don't think the steam engines were
> even running that day. Jump ahead to May 10, 1994,
> the 125th anniversary of the joining of the rails,
> and I've ever seen so many people out in the
> middle of nowhere at one time!

I was at Promentory for the 125th anniversary event. Probably 12,000 to 15,000 on hand. Most memorable: Great re-enactment ceremony; huge tent erected by UP (including ceiling fans, if I recall correctly) for their VIP guests; lousy bus shuttle system back to the satellite parking at Morton Thiokol.

This is a great story. While it's too bad the small museum didn't survive, most of it's collection has been preserved and/or operating at other locations. It's also great that the National Park Service has developed the site of the Golden Spike, and that it too has become a success story. Many visitors will gain a new appreciation for the history of our railroads and the role they played in the development of North America.

Thanks for the great topic.

Steve Mitchell
http://www.yardgoatimages.com

My wife and I visited the Golden Spike site in September 2001, only a few days after the Al Qaeda attacks. It reminded me that America has always been about building, using the forces of destruction only when absolutely necessary. Two things that particularly caught my attention: the terminal pole for the telegraph line, a replica of the one where the instruments were connected to send the news to a waiting country, and the plaque honoring the Chinese workers who played such an important part in the western part of the project. I took a photo of the plaque to share with a co-worker of Chinese ancestry, and told him about how the UP supervisor, who had mostly Irish laborers, ridiculed the "Chinamen", their short stature and their tea-drinking habit. The Central Pacific supervisor said something like, "My Chinese will be hard at work Monday morning while your Hibernians are still sleeping off their hangovers."
Regarding Corinne: We stopped at Corinne for a snack before heading to Promontory, and I commented that even though it could be called a "sleepy village" now, back in the 1860's it was a rip-roaring, wild and wooly boom town, with plenty of alcoholic beverages, games of chance and women of doubtful virtue. On an earlier trip, we visited Julesburg, Colorado, another now-quiet town that had a much livelier past as a construction boomtown.

Please forgive the quality of these images, at 40 plus years old, these Kodakcrome 25's are starting to go magenta. From a family vacation in dads 1964 Plymouth Valiant. Blue vinyl seats, no air conditioning and desert sun equals one hot teenager!

Here's the SP engine on display at Corrine, plus the Bamberger Interurban and a Saltair open air coach. Corrine had two of these, did either survive?

Note the Beeline gas station in the background. With Utah being the "Beehive State", was this a Utah comany?.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/11 10:47 by eminence_grise.

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Here's the lonely cairn at Promontory before the visitors center. I think the raised berm in the background is the original right of way.

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I had the opportunity to go to the Great Basin Getaway, and operate on Lee Nicholas' Utah Colorado Western, in about 2002. The original transcon ROW went right behind his place in Corrine, but it was now reduced to a branch, serving mostly Morton Thiokol, IIRC.

Brian Ehni

Great photos of the museum, Phil! Both of the SLG&W open airs survived the trip to Heber City, and were displayed for years at the Heber Creeper; both ended up in disrepair. In 1993 one of the cars was sold by its new owner, the State of Nevada, to the Western Railway Museum at Rio Vista Junction, California. The other eventually went to the Heber Valley Railroad, and was deemed too far gone to restore. It was burned a few years ago and scrapped.

Jeff Terry



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/11 06:09 by CPengineer.