Equipo Williams

(Note: Audrey wrote this a week or so ago, when we were coming out of Idaho into Utah. For various reasons, I haven’t gotten around to posting it until now.)

Yesterday we went to EBR1 (experimental breeder reactor) and The Golden Spike. EBR1 in Idaho was the first place in the world to use atomic energy. That is, on December 20, 1951, EBR1 used nuclear power to power 4 lightbulbs. On December 21, EBR1 successfully made uranium into plutonium fuel that could be used in other nuclear facilities. Now, the entire town of Arco, Idaho, is powered with nuclear energy. EBR1 was decommissioned in 1964 and became a public museum. People who visit the site learn more about nuclear energy, and the facility where it was first used.

After EBR1 we drove to The Golden Spike in Utah. Around the time of the Civil War, The American government decided that people should more easily be able to cross the country east to west (or west to east), so they decided to make a railroad from Omaha (Nebraska) to Sacramento (California). Omaha already had connections to the East Coast but to go further west you had to take a wagon or boat. It was long and hard to take a wagon, and a boat wasn’t much better, but trains were becoming more and more widespread, and a train was much easier than the other two options. The government paid the Central Pacific (from Sacramento) and the Union Pacific (from Omaha) railroad companies by the mile, so they build the easiest and fastest railroad they could. Because of this, as you can imagine, the railroad wasn’t very sturdy. In fact, once the workers had gotten some experience, they would place more than a mile of track each day. Even so, it took them six long, hard years to build the railroad. They had to cross mountains, going over and under them, and the train could only go up at a %2 grade. This means that if they went 100 feet forward, they could only go up 2 feet. Therefore, it was really hard to go over mountains like the Sierras and the Rockies. At promontory point the two companies met and dedicated a golden spike to the first railroad across America. Each company sent a special train to The Golden Spike. The Central Pacific railroad company sent a blue locomotive called Jupiter and the Union Pacific sent a red locomotive simply called 119. Each company had different materials available to them, so while 119 burnt coal, Jupiter burnt wood, because coal wasn’t as easily available in California.

The two sites we saw today were very important to American history, and I’m glad we went to them, because I didn’t know about either one until we were there. After EBR1, however, my parents made me go to a rocket park, and for the ten minutes we were there, I just sat in the car and glared at them. After that we went to our hotel in Salt Lake City, and so ended our museum filled, wonderfully interesting (except for the rocket park) day.