ANCHORAGE, Alaska—President Warren G. Harding drove a golden spike into the final coupling of the Alaska Railroad more than a century ago, a ceremonial act that marked the launch of a system to easily bring coal and other natural resources out of the wilderness.
Harding would die of a massive heart attack just a few days later, on his way back to Washington. The spike he pounded with such fanfare—weighing nearly a pound and valued at up to $50,000—has been in private hands outside of the state ever since.
Now, two Alaska institutions want to bring that piece of history home. The Anchorage Museum, with financial backing from the Alaska Railroad, will bid on the 14-karat solid gold spike when it goes up for auction Friday in New York as part of the Christie’s Important Americana collection, said Aaron Leggett, the museum’s senior curator of Alaska history and Indigenous cultures….