The Northern Pacific Railway was symbolically completed on September 8, 1883, near the mouth of Independence Creek after a lavish but troubled last spike celebration organized by railroad president Henry Villard. He built a large pavilion, a platform beside the tracks, and a bandstand for Fort Keogh's Fifth Infantry band, and brought in excursion cars carrying dignitaries, mostly European financial backers, a delegation of Crow Indians led by Iron Bull, President Ulysses Grant, and former Secretary of State William Dewart. Although the ceremony was scheduled for 10 a.m., it began five hours late on an oppressively hot day as uninvited people from Helena and nearby communities gathered outside while invited guests were fed in the shade. Long speeches aimed at those in the pavilion angered the larger crowd, and disorder grew until Grant rose and addressed them directly. At 5:30 p.m. Villard drove the last spike, two locomotives touched cowcatchers as their engineers shook hands, and the dignitaries reboarded the trains for the west coast, leaving Villard $250,000 poorer and many local attendees to make their way home hungry. Among the 332 guests was John Mullan, a former lieutenant in the U.S. Corps of Topographical Engineers who had come west in 1852, helped Isaac Stevens survey a northern transcontinental railroad route, and from 1853 to 1862 built a military wagon supply road from Walla Walla to Fort Benton. Though none of the speeches recognized his efforts, the Mullan Road helped open western Montana to settlement in the 1860s and 1870s, and the Northern Pacific Railway later paralleled it from Mullan Pass west of Helena to Spokane, Washington.