Utahns pick railroad quarter

"It brings it to life," she said of the coin design. "It feels like I'm an actual part of it."

Brigham City's Wayne Johnson, 89, agreed. Decked out in period gear including a genuine beaver top hat, Johnson said he loves the design chosen. "I think that's the only one that really qualifies. It's such a significant occasion."

Huntsman said in his speech that the completion of the transcontinental railroad in Utah "turned what was called the great American desert into the great American West," with the help of Chinese and Irish laborers.

The governor showed the crowd the means he's using to communicate the design preference — a replica of the golden spike inscribed with the message, "Our choice!" complete with his signature.

He and his 20-year-old daughter, Abby, arrived at the ceremony aboard one of the two steam locomotives used in the re-enactment, the No. 119. The locomotive met up with the Jupiter to re-create the moment when the rails were joined.

It's the scene anyone picking up one of the 450 million coins that will be minted beginning in January 2007 will see — and associate with Utah. About 99 percent of the coins are expected to be circulated outside the state.

The U.S. Mint is producing quarters for each of the nation's 50 states in the order in which they were granted statehood. Utahns were asked to submit ideas and came up with more than 5,000, nearly all from schoolchildren.

Those ideas were reduced to nine categories, which included landscape, red rock, pioneer heritage, Native Americans, dinosaurs and state symbols in addition to the specific proposals selected by the commemorative quarter commission.

The actual design of the quarters was done by U.S. Mint artists, Hunt said. The online voting, held over a 25-day period that ended Monday, attracted an average of 5,000 people a day.

"People were so passionate," Hunt said. "They had really strong feelings about their preferences."

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