In the fall of 1883, a group of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen gathered with much fanfare in the wilds of Montana Territory. In their stylishness and cool elegance they looked conspicuously out of place.

Some had traveled from as far as England, the Netherlands, and Germany to this isolated patch of sagebrush and sand on the banks of the Clark Fork River, and they had done so willingly.

Nearby a large sign read "Lake Superior 1,198 miles / Puget Sound 847 miles." It reminded visitors that they had assembled almost literally in the middle of nowhere.

Among those present for the day’s events were former President Ulysses S. Grant, former Secretary of State William Evarts (the featured speaker), and the governors of the states and territories linked to this desolate site by the tracks that were the sole reason for the unusual gathering.

The guests of the Northern Pacific Railroad had traveled to Gold Creek, Montana aboard five luxury trains to witness the driving of a last spike that marked the formal opening of the first transcontinental rails linking the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest.

Despite historic ties of kinship and commerce, never before had the Midwest and Pacific Northwest been able to embrace more intimately than they did on September 8, 1883, when the Northern Pacific Railroad radically redefined the time and space that separated the two regions. More than ever before boundless space became precisely definable time: the two regions now lay less than a week apart by passenger train.

After the loud band music, the flowery oratory, and the last sledgehammer blows drove a golden spike into place, the guests reboarded their special trains and left Gold Creek, most of them never to return. High finance, nationwide markets, and rapid transportation and communication now had a direct line to the Pacific Northwest.