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Driving of the Last Spike

Name: Driving of the Last Spike
Start: 1885-11-07
Location: Craigellachie

When: 1885-11-07
Where: Craigellachie
Part of: Canadian Pacific Railway construction completed at Craigellachie

CPR director Donald Smith drove the last spike at Craigellachie, British Columbia, on November 7, 1885, completing the transcontinental railway construction.

The ceremonial last spike was driven by Donald Smith, a director of the Canadian Pacific Railway, at Craigellachie, British Columbia. This event marked the physical completion of the line built between eastern Canada and British Columbia. The site was named after the ancestral home of Sir George Stephen, the first CPR president.

Sources

Canadian Pacific Railway Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-13
Craigellachie, British Columbia Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-12

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.