Anchorage Museum Helps Bring Historic Railroad Spike Home to Alaska
January 27, 2025 | In the PressFrom Artnet (https://news.artnet.com/art-world/anchorage-museum-nenana-alaska-golden-spike-2601903)
In December, leaders of the Anchorage Museum in Alaska began hearing “some rumblings” on social media. Those “rumblings,” as Monica Shah, the museum’s deputy director of collections and conservation, told me, related to a rare piece of Alaskan history that had been in hiding for nearly a century. It ultimately became the unexpected star of Christie’s January 25 Americana sale.
Known as Alaska’s Golden Spike, the object represented the completion of the Alaska Railroad in 1923, the construction of which spanned nearly a decade. The 24-carat artifact was originally presented as a gift from the city of Anchorage to Colonel Frederick Mears to honor his role in the project. It was loaned to President Warren G. Harding to use at a ceremony marking the completion of the railroad on July 15, near the city of Nenana.
A dedication to Frederick Mears engraved on the Golden Spike. Photo courtesy of the Anchorage Museum.
At the Christie’s sale this past Friday, it sparked a fierce bidding war, and the final, premium-inclusive price ultimately quadrupled the high estimate of $50,000, to sell for $201,600. The winning bidders? The Anchorage Museum, which teamed up with the Alaskan City of Nenana to jointly acquire the item, ensuring that an important piece of the state’s history “will be held in the public trust and accessible for future generations,” according to a post-auction statement.
“We are thrilled to partner with Nenana to share this piece of history with the public,” Anchorage Museum CEO Julie Decke said in a statement, adding that the spike is “a great piece of storytelling about place and people.”
Nenana Mayor Joshua Verhagen said the city is “extremely excited and appreciative of this partnership with the Anchorage Museum. I think it’s a neat story of an urban and a rural community both along the rail belt coming together for a worthy cause.”
The two parties have agreed to alternate exhibiting the spike—which has been largely out of view for 100 years save for exhibitions in 1967 and 2001. They banded together when they learned the work was being offered at auction from a private collection, and raised the necessary money including with the help of private donations.

The Anchorage Museum. Photo: Chris Arend Photography.
At the 1923 ceremony, President Harding said, “In my humble judgement the qualities of pioneers in co-operation with those of transportation will do more to work out the development of this wonderland than anything which the great government of the United States can do.”

U.S. Pres. Harding driveing (sic) gold spike, Alaska Ry. July 15- 23; A.S.S.; from verso: Harding, Warren Gamaliel; Pres, U.S., 1865-1923 (Ceremony driving gold spike for Alaska Railroad at Nenana; crowd, spectators; boats and fishwheels on Tanana River; bridge). Image courtesy CIHS Collection, Anchorage Museum, B1975.134.186
Mears, the main engineer, was born in Omaha, Neb., in 1878, to a military family. At the young age of 15, he enrolled at the Shattuck Military Academy in Montana. Upon graduation, he enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army. He rose through the Army’s ranks and was later asked to work as an engineer on the construction of the Panama Canal. His experience there caught the eye of President Woodrow Wilson when he sought to establish a new railroad in Alaska territory.
Shah, of the Anchorage Museum, told me how great it was to see two institutions come together so quickly to secure the work, particularly when it had been in private hands for so long. “It’s a forever document. There is no end to this ownership agreement.”