Lang

Charles Crocker drove a gold spike here on September 5, 1876 and Los Angeles stopped being isolated. Three thousand Chinese labourers had built the line to this point, a thousand of them chiselling the San Fernando Tunnel through wet sandstone for a dollar a day, dying at it. They came within half an inch of true when the two headings met. The last stretch of track was laid by white crews, and the ceremony photographs are of the men who did not dig.

What the plaque says

On September 5, 1876, Charles Crocker, President of the Southern Pacific Company, drove a gold spike here to complete his company's San Joaquin Valley Line, the first rail connection of Los Angeles with San Francisco and Transcontinental lines.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Colorado Street Bridge — 23 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 28 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.

More markers nearby

• Oak of the Golden Dream — 6.5 mi
• San Fernando Cemetery — 8.6 mi
• Lyons Station Stagecoach Stop — 8.7 mi
• Pioneer Oil Refinery — 9.1 mi