Northern Pacific Railroad Completion Site, 1883

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

From the record

“The Northern Pacific Railroad Completion Site is the location of the golden spike ceremony for the completion of the Northern Pacific Railway (NP) in 1883. The site is located near Gold Creek in Powell County, Montana, off Interstate 90, approximately 59 miles (95 km) southeast of Missoula and 40 miles (64 km) west of Helena.”
Wikipedia article Northern Pacific Railroad Completion Site, 1883, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 20 National Register listings published here for Powell County · listed in 1983 · category: Site.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 site, 1 structure, 1 object as contributing to the listing.
Address. Off I-90, Gold Creek, 59733
When was it listed? August 1983
Category. site
Census division. Avon-Elliston
National Register reference number. 83001075 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

29 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 29 fires within 5 miles of Northern Pacific Railroad Completion Site, 1883 between 1992 and 2016, burning about 669 acres in total. 12 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	12
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	12
Railroad operations and maintenance	4
Recreation and ceremony	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
4 September 1998	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Southwestern Land Office	PHOSPHATE
22 September 1992	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Southwestern Land Office	GOLD CREEK #2
7 August 1994	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Southwestern Land Office	WILLOW CREEK #2
7 August 1994	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	8.5 acres	Southwestern Land Office	WILLOW CREEK
4 August 2004	Natural	under an acre	Southwestern Land Office	not named
29 August 1998	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Southwestern Land Office	CLARK FORK RIVER
27 August 1996	Natural	20 acres	Southwestern Land Office	GARRISON JUNCTION
19 August 2000	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Southwestern Land Office	not named

Every fire recorded in Powell County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 29 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 29 workings within 5 miles of Northern Pacific Railroad Completion Site, 1883: 16 past producers, 6 occurrences, 4 unknowns, 2 producers. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Gold, Pumice, Silver, Brick Clay, Aggregate, Light Weight. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Big Sky Ready Mix Sand	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
South Luke Mine	Phosphorus-Phosphates	Past Producer
Unnamed	Uranium	Occurrence
Warm Springs Creek	Geothermal	Producer
Clay Deposit East of Garrison	Brick Clay, Aggregate, Light Weight	Occurrence	Calcite, Dolomite, Feldspar, Illite, Kaolin, Pyrophyllite, Quartz
Clay Deposit West of Garrison	Brick Clay, Aggregate, Light Weight	Occurrence	Calcite, Dolomite, Illite, Montmorillonite
Pioneer District-Montana	Gold, Silver	Past Producer	1852
Unnamed Pumice	Pumice	Occurrence
Valley Concrete Pit No 1	Silver	Past Producer
Willow Creek Pumice Deposit	Pumice	Occurrence	Pumice

Every working recorded in Powell County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 83001075 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Powell County	All 20 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.