Railroad History in Strasburg

I am really enjoying my Roadside America app, because it's helped us to find some things along the way we didn't know about.
Yesterday, on the ride home from Denver, I was checking out the Denver area items, and saw one in Strasburg, the town we're staying in.  It turns out that Strasburg was actually where the Transcontinental Railroad was joined.  Some history reports say it was Utah, but it turns out that's incorrect. 

Henry and I drove into town to locate the marker and sign, which to be honest, are in need of repair.  There's a white marker next to the sign, but the plaque has fallen off, along with some of the concrete. The sign is in front of the railroad tracks, which are just beyond the fence. 

Here's what the sign says:

“A continuous chain of rails from Atlantic to Pacific - long a vision of pioneer railroaders and frontier-tamers-became reality at 3:00 P.M. on August 15, 1870, at a point 3,812 ft. east of the depot in what now is Strasburg, Colorado. Near Comanche Crossing, named for a usually dry, sometimes rampaging creek, the last rails were spiked by Kansas Pacific Railroad crews driving west from Kansas City and east from Denver to give the nation its first truly continuous coast-to-coast railroad. On the final day the crews laid a record-breaking 10-1/4 miles of track in 9 hours to win a barrel of whiskey which canny foremen had placed midway in the final gap.”

You can also see the storm blowing over in the picture.  As Henry and I were driving back to the campground, we saw a huge bolt of lightning.