
More than a century after becoming an emblem for the development of the Last Frontier, a major Alaska artifact is returning home.
The Anchorage Museum and the City of Nenana have acquired the golden railroad spike that was used in a celebration commemorating the completion of the Alaska Railroad in 1923.
The item was auctioned off by Christie’s auction house Friday as part of its Americana Week featuring other rare American historical items. The winning bid for the 5-1/2-inch-long spike made of 14-karat gold was $160,000, and the total cost was $201,600 — including the buyer’s premium, a 26% fee that goes to Christie’s. A Christie’s spokesman said there was “strong bidding from multiple sources.”
The purchase was funded by private donors, including the Alaska Railroad and members of the Nenana community.
“The shared vision is to preserve and display the spike so that Alaskans and visitors can learn about its significance in the state’s history,” the Anchorage Museum said in a prepared statement.
“We are thrilled to partner with Nenana to share this piece of history with the public,” Anchorage Museum Director/CEO Julie Decker said in the statement. “The Golden Spike is a great piece of storytelling about place and people.”
The golden spike was presented as a gift from the City of Anchorage to U.S. Army Col. Frederick Mears for his role in the construction of the Alaska Railroad. Mears was chairman of the Alaska Engineering Commission and the railroad’s chief engineer.
To celebrate the railroad’s completion, President Warren G. Harding drove the golden spike into place in a ceremony held near Nenana on July 15, 1923, before it was replaced with a standard railroad spike. The completion of the stretch near Nenana included what is now known as the Mears Memorial Bridge, which crossed the Tanana River. That was the final piece that completed the route from Seward to Fairbanks. Prior to construction, passengers and freight were ferried across the river.

Nenana Mayor Joshua Verhagen said he grew up about 200 feet from where the spike was driven in by Harding.
“When I was a kid, tourists would come in their RVs down our driveway, looking for this site and looking for the golden spike,” Verhagen said. “So it’s kind of been a personal dream of mine to have the golden spike back here. And it’s crazy to me that 100 years later, people are still coming to me now looking for this golden spike.”
The Anchorage Museum and the City of Nenana will alternate exhibiting the spike, with the museum taking it during the winter and Nenana hosting it during the summer. The spike has mostly been kept out of public view under private ownership, with brief exhibitions in Fairbanks in 1967 and Anchorage in 2001, according to the museum.
Monica Shah, who is deputy director for conservation and collections at the Anchorage Museum, is co-chair of the Acquisitions Committee.
Once Christie’s announced the spike would be available at auction, the committee identified it as an important piece that deserved consideration.
“We all agreed and made a recommendation that this very important piece of history should come home and be in the public sphere and not be in private hands anymore,” she said. “It’s a part of history in Anchorage and the history of the railroad. It’s important, not just locally, but statewide.”
In Nenana, there were also discussions about purchasing the spike. The two groups began to form a partnership, allowing them to combine resources.
The auction estimate for the item was between $30,000 and $50,000.
Verhagen said his initial guess was that the spike could go for more than $80,000. Just in value in gold alone, the spike is worth nearly $40,000.
But he said donors wanted to assure the best opportunity to make the highest bid and increased funding.
Shah was in charge of handling the live bidding on Friday, and despite the auction estimates, the partnership realized a likelihood of higher interest.
“We go in with an idea of what we think might be the price that it might sell at, and then we also go into it with an idea of what we are willing to spend,” she said. “And then also a third factor is what we might have at our disposal. Sometimes they don’t all three align, and we were lucky today that all three aligned.”
Meanwhile, Verhagen and others were in Fairbanks listening to the livestream as callers and internet bidders worked with proxies at Christie’s.
“I was really excited and it’s a lot of pressure as well,” Shah said. “I was very focused, because I didn’t want anything to disrupt this phone call or take my attention to the phone call because it could impact the entire state’s history.”
Verhagen said bidding started at $75,000, and bidding went quickly to the final price.
“It all went so fast, it was a bit nerve-wracking to be honest,” he said.
Verhagen said that without the partnership of Nenana and the Anchorage Museum, the spike would have likely stayed out of public view. He said the spike is important to the communities of Nenana and Anchorage, which both developed as railroad hubs.
“It was part of our goal to be able to tell the story of why this mattered so much, and the significance of the railroad’s history for not only tourists, but for locals who don’t know,” he said. “I think in many ways, this is a forgotten story that we would like to revive, and we would like to be told and retold, and so that is significant to us.”
The spike stayed in the Mears family until 1967. An unidentified seller in California had owned the spike since 1983 before putting it up for auction.
“We are honored that Christie’s was entrusted with the sale of this important part of Alaska history,” said Christie’s specialist Christopher June, who is from Alaska. “The fact that it will be available to the people of the state, which is my home state, makes this even better.”