A Stamp and a Shopping Bag

In the summer of 2007 my father, son, and myself set out on what would be the first of four week long road trips we would take in the west. I had just finished reading about the Transcontinental Railroad and wanted to follow some of the Central Pacific’s route through Nevada and Utah.

On the second day of that trip we ended up at the Golden Spike National Historic Site in Promontory, Utah, which of course, is the location where the Golden Spike was driven to complete the Transcontinental Railroad. On the way between Montello, Nevada, and Promontory, Utah, we followed most of the original railbed alignment stopping to walk on some sections and driving others.

I wasn’t sure what we would find when we got to the Golden Spike site, other than a visitors center, and was pleasantly surprised to find two locomotives sitting nose to nose on the tracks. Replicas of the Central Pacific Railroads Jupiter and the Union Pacific’s No. 119 steam locomotives were positioned in the spot were the two original locomotives would have been on May 10th, 1869.

We parked in the visitor center parking lot and immediately went out to the locomotives. After doing our interpretive poses imitating the iconic images from 1869 I walked around both of the engines snapping pictures from all angles. I tried to stay out of the way of the other person that was there taking photos, a train enthusiast from Australia, who had made the trip from the other side of the globe to Promontory specifically to see this. A conversation was eventually struck and we both agreed that we were fortunate to be there on a day with both locomotives on display.

The road trip finished up 5 days later and the photos eventually ended up on my website. Over the next 10 years I was able to sell a couple of prints of photos taken that day in Promontory and also occasionally refreshed the online image as my Photoshop skills improved. Then, in May of 2017, I received a request from the United States Postal Service to license an image to use as part of the creation of a stamp to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.

My image would not appear as the stamp but rather it was going to be used as a reference image for artist Michael Deas to design the stamps. Agreements were agreed to, and contracts were signed, followed by the long wait. For over a year I had to resist the urge to shout it out on Twitter and Facebook. I even used hushed tones when discussing it with my family. I didn’t want to give the Postal Service any reason to think I violated the contract.

As 2019 started I would check the USPS website every few days looking for the official announcement. Finally, at the end of January the official announcement was made and it included an image of the 3 pane set. I stared at the screen comparing my photo to the left most of the 3, the clouds were more dramatic but the rest of the image matched in composition and perspective. My photo had been used to create the Jupiter stamp and it was starting to sink in. I had always regarded the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad as one of the United States greatest accomplishments and now, in a very, very, small way I was connected to the history of that accomplishment.

The official stamp release took place on May 10th, 2019, and myself, my wife, and 20,000 other people made our way along the 2 lane road to Promontory Point. It was reminiscent of the final scene of Fields of Dreams with a solid stream of vehicles making their way to a spot in the desert. All those people in all those cars ended up crammed into the area between the Visitors Center and the railroad tracks, listening to the face being projected on the big screen monitors that were set up. I think there was a stage with someone on it but I could never get close enough to tell for certain.

I spent most of the day in the back near where the stamps were being sold and picked up a bunch of first day covers as well as posters of all 3 stamps, all the while casually mentioning the story behind the Jupiter stamp to anyone who would listen.

The biggest surprise of the day came when we were standing in line to make a purchase at the National Park Service gift center. As the line moved forward we passed a rack of re-usable shopping bags featuring a photo of the Jupiter on one side and No.119 on the other. At first I was only thinking what a great idea it would be to use the bag to put all of our purchases in while we waited in line, but then I looked closely at the photo of No. 119 and realized it was one of the ones I had taken back on that road trip in 2007.

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/central-pacific-railroads-jupiter-rick-pisio.html

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/union-pacific-119-rick-pisio.html