The city of Baltimore is full of expressions of different places in American history.  On the edge of the city, not far from the large modern football stadium, is found  the American Revolutionary era Fort McHenry.  

​Fort McHenry National Monument is situated alongside the bay waters, which enabled it to protect the foundling city of Baltimore.  The scent of light sea water fills the air as  you walk around the fort.  Its condition has been kept up as such it makes it easy to travel back in time via one's imagination.  Walking outside the brick fortifications, one can visualise soldiers standing guard along the walls and near the cannons.  Inside the fort you can visit their living quarters, including the barracks and mess hall, which was just about the size of a tavern.  The fort is a fascinating place to set oneself into a specific period in US history.

​However, the most prominent and historically important portion of Fort McHenry isn't the fort itself, but something that has gone on to inspire millions of Americans for generations.  It is the Star Spangled Banner.  During a battle in the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key was at a point on one of the British ships out in the bay as both sides fought hard through the night.  It was this experience that led him to write the poem from which portions were used to form the US National Anthem.  

A replica of the Star Spangled Banner flies over Fort McHenry, and the original is housed inside its museum.  It is a massive flag.  While visiting the Fort, my children and I were privileged to take part in the folding ceremony, which utilized more than 20 people so as it would not touch the ground.  Its an honor I'll never forget, and it was on July 3rd, the eve of the United State's Independence Day.

​One other ceremonial set up is in the museum, where participation is in the theater that is built directly behind the wall that displays the original banner.   A short film is played on screen depicting the history of the fort, and more prominently, the battle & experience of that fateful night Francis Scott Key wrote his famous poem. The original handwritten version in its entirety  is displayed nearby.  At the end of the film, viewers are asked to rise and sing along to the US National Anthem.  While singing, the screen begins to rise, revealing open windows that view the fort and the beautiful Star Spangled Banner flying over it.  One can not help but to feel in that moment the gravity of the words, knowing now their precise inspiration.  It is emotional and impactful.  

Stepping foot into the source of historical events puts into the heart and mind a sense of reality that can change the perspective of that event's importance.  A song that millions know, even casually, gains a real heartbeat after experiencing its origins at Fort McHenry. 

To celebrate the introduction of this blog, I want to offer a chance for 5 readers to win a promotional postcard. My first blog post was of Golden Spike National Monument. On May 10th of this year they celebrated the 150th Anniversary of the joining of the Union and Central Pacific with the eponymous golden spike being driven down. The National Park Service held a re-enactment, along with building a temporary new Promontory town to enhance the feeling of being present 150 years ago. For anyone interested, these re-enactments will continue to be held every Saturday in 2019 through Labor Day weekend.
So as a commemorative gift of that anniversary and the beginning of what I hope to be years of blogging friendship, I have 5 postcards that I purchased at the Golden Spike Anniversary Celebration to give away. Each card is stamped with the National Park Service’s official cancellation stamp on the date of May 10, 2019, and will be mailed using a limited edition collectible commemorative Golden Spike Train stamp issued by the USPS.
Entering to win is easy. Either comment on my first blog post, or go over to Instagram, become a follower, and tag a friend in the post of this image/postcard. You can find it on my Instagram @touringlady
Thank you for your support, best of luck, and I’m happy to have you here!
​-Heather

When visiting Golden Spike National Monument, my first impression came from the fact that its location is quite distant from any city, or major town.  Granted, where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroad companies eventually met does not really parlay into where the entirety of the railway provides access along the land of the United States.  One thing that I learned that I found to be interesting was that both companies worked on the grade for their portion of the railway, purposely surpassing one another, illuminating that there must have been disputes on land rights, and the primary rail ownership that would commence upon completion.  The grades that were built out of place of the original rail way are still visible today.

​Salt Lake City was an active industrial center for its time, and yet the chosen path of the railway took them miles north of Salt Lake City.  Enterprise beyond passenger travel may have been an aspect of this decision, or perhaps some sort of political ploy due to cultural clashing of the Mormons and the US Government.   At the time of the completion of the railroad, there was a town built around the proposed joining area called Promontory.  It was primarily there for the workers employed by the railroad companies. It also provided business for frontier entrepreneurs, some of whom took advantage of the relative lawless freedom of the West, utilizing it to provide brothels, unbridled saloons, and places for gambling.   It was interesting to see some of the artifacts from Promontory in the small onsite museum. Not long after the completion of the railway, the town of Promontory faded away as the now unemployed railroad workers went elsewhere to make a new living. 

One would not really encounter a decent sized populous along the railroad from Promontory until one reached the city of Ogden.  Looking at the railway today, it appears that it was built in remote and through obscure locations, especially in regards to populated areas.  However, when it was being built, it could be considered that nearly the whole expanse of the railroad was along primarily unpopulated areas; that is, unpopulated by European American settlers. While many towns were in their infancy at this time, it would have been difficult in some cases to discern which would grow to great prosperity, and which would disappear back into the natural wild.  In regards to White’s argumentive quote that is placed into this assignment, I can’t help but think of the common adage, “Hindsight is 20/20”.  Sure, the railway could have been built using less funds if it was done at a later time, due to technological and mining advances that have not yet occurred, yet at the time of the building of the railway, there was much ambition to get to the West as soon as possible, so one could stake claim in areas where they hoped to gain prosperity.  It was a race of the railroad companies, and there was as simultaneous race for pioneers to get somewhere where they could place their hopes in a brighter future.  For people, I imagine that the railway meant a great deal to the opportunity that could be achieved. 

 Alongside the railway, cables were laid for communications via telegraph. This is also a contributor to the faster pace of the expansion of the western frontier.  Just a few years prior to the transcontinental telegraph, the best advance in communications across the West was the Pony Express, and this telegraph line made it practically obsolete.  This is an example to illustrate that progress would not wait for financial, social, or political convenience, and for that reason I do not completely agree with White’s statement.  I do, however, agree that the social problems that the railroad building provided was absolutely devastating to the Native Peoples.  If pioneering progress wasn’t being done at such an unprecedented pace, we may not have had the horrible atrocities that were perpetrated against the Native People of America during that period. 

Though quite remote, and unpopulated today, Promontory Point, or rather Golden Spike National Monument, can allow one with a good imagination to recognize the significance of the feat of the transcontinental railway.  The attractive steam engine train replicas of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific show a sense of pride in the project, as well as the meeting of two separate, distant areas of the country on common ground.  This would likely have been something that would be quite significant in a time so soon after the Civil War.  In that place, on May 10th 1869, when the final & symbolic golden spike was driven into the railway, I can only imagine the energy of the mixed emotions of the people both in attendance and awaiting the news of completion from afar.  Emotions could have conveyed the gratitude of the completion of such an ambitious, and difficult, project, to the many ideas optimistic individuals envisioned would be now made possible by this transcontinental railroad.