Benjamin Franklin Ficklin
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Benjamin Franklin Ficklin
Benjamin Franklin Ficklin (1827–1871) was a soldier, adventurer, and entrepreneur known for his help in starting the Pony Express and for establishing other stage coach and mail routes in the United States during the nineteenth century. Ficklin was also one of the people responsible for the creation of the Pacific Telegraph Company in 1861. Biography Early days Born in Albemarle County, Virginia in 1827, Ficklin had a reputation for misbehaving. So in 1845, his father sent young Ficklin to attend the Virginia Military Institute. As a cadet, Ficklin was known for his pranks, and he often got in trouble for them. One night, he filled a howitzer with gunpowder, turned it toward the cadet barracks, and discharged it (Virginia Military Institute Archives, 2005). This action resulted in his suspension in 1846. Career With his suspension, Ficklin entered the Army. He ultimately served as a corporal in the Mexican–American War, where he was injured but recovered. Ficklin requested t ...
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Pony Express
The Pony Express was an American express mail service that used relays of horse-mounted riders. It operated from April 3, 1860, to October 26, 1861, between Missouri and California. It was operated by the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company. During its 18 months of operation, the Pony Express reduced the time for messages to travel between the east and west US coast to about 10 days. It became the west's most direct means of eastwest communication before the first transcontinental telegraph was established (October 24, 1861), and was vital for tying the new U.S. state of California with the rest of the United States. Despite a heavy subsidy, the Pony Express was not a financial success and went bankrupt in 18 months, when a faster telegraph service was established. Nevertheless, it demonstrated that a unified transcontinental system of communications could be established and operated year-round. When replaced by the telegraph, the Pony Express quick ...
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Nebraska
Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwest; and Wyoming to the west. It is the only triply landlocked U.S. state. Indigenous peoples, including Omaha, Missouria, Ponca, Pawnee, Otoe, and various branches of the Lakota ( Sioux) tribes, lived in the region for thousands of years before European exploration. The state is crossed by many historic trails, including that of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Nebraska's area is just over with a population of over 1.9 million. Its capital is Lincoln, and its largest city is Omaha, which is on the Missouri River. Nebraska was admitted into the United States in 1867, two years after the end of the American Civil War. The Nebraska Legislature is unlike any other American legislature in that it is unicameral, and its members are elected ...
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Washington, D
Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on Washington, D.C. * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States Washington may also refer to: Places England * Washington, Tyne and Wear, a town in the City of Sunderland metropolitan borough ** Washington Old Hall, ancestral home of the family of George Washington * Washington, West Sussex, a village and civil parish Greenland * Cape Washington, Greenland * Washington Land Philippines *New Washington, Aklan, a municipality *Washington, a barangay in Catarman, Northern Samar *Washington, a barangay in Escalante, Negros Occidental *Washington, a barangay in San Jacinto, Masbate *Washington, a barangay in Surigao City United States * Washington, Wisconsin (other) * Fort Washington (other) ...
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Reconstruction Era Of The United States
The Reconstruction era was a period in History of the United States, American history following the American Civil War (1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the Compromise of 1877. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloody Civil War, bring the former Confederate States of America, Confederate states back into the United States, and to redress the political, social, and economic legacies of slavery. During the era, United States Congress, Congress Abolitionism in the United States, abolished slavery, ended the remnants of Secession in the United States, Confederate secession in the Southern United States, South, and passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, 13th, Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, 14th, and Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, 15th Amendments to the Constitution (the Reconstruction Amendments) ostensibly guaranteeing the newly freed slaves (Freedma ...
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Monticello
Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, in the Piedmont region, the plantation was originally , with Jefferson using the labor of enslaved Africans for extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, later shifting from tobacco cultivation to wheat in response to changing markets. Due to its architectural and historic significance, the property has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1987, Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia, also designed by Jefferson, were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The current nickel, a United States coin, features a depiction of Monticello on its reverse side. Jefferson designed the main house using neoclassical design principles described by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio and rew ...
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Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the nation's second vice president of the United States, vice president under John Adams and the first United States Secretary of State, United States secretary of state under George Washington. The principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating Thirteen Colonies, American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation. He produced formative documents and decisions at state, national, and international levels. During the American Revolution, Jefferson represented Virginia in the Continental Congress that adopted the Declaration of Independence. As ...
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Confederate States Of America
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confederacy comprised U.S. states that declared secession and warred against the United States during the American Civil War: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Kentucky and Missouri also declared secession and had full representation in the Confederate Congress, though their territory was largely controlled by Union forces. The Confederacy was formed on February 8, 1861, by seven slave states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. All seven were in the Deep South region of the United States, whose economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture—particularly cotton—and a plantation system that relied upon enslaved ...
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American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the west. An initial seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and, in 1861, forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, ...
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First Transcontinental Telegraph
The first transcontinental telegraph (completed October 24, 1861) was a line that connected the existing telegraph network in the eastern United States to a small network in California, by means of a link between Omaha, Nebraska and Carson City, Nevada, via Salt Lake City. It was a milestone in electrical engineering and in the formation of the United States of America. It served as the only method of near-instantaneous communication between the east and west coasts during the 1860s. For comparison, in 1841, the news of the death of President William Henry Harrison had taken 110 days to reach Los Angeles. Background After the development of efficient telegraph systems in the 1830s, their use saw almost explosive growth in the 1840s. Samuel Morse's first experimental line between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore—the Baltimore-Washington telegraph line—was demonstrated on May 24, 1844. By 1850 there were lines covering most of the eastern states, and a separate network of line ...
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Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, the city is the core of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which had a population of 1,257,936 at the 2020 census. Salt Lake City is further situated within a larger metropolis known as the Salt Lake City–Provo–Orem Combined Statistical Area, Salt Lake City–Ogden–Provo Combined Statistical Area, a corridor of contiguous urban and suburban development stretched along a segment of the Wasatch Front, comprising a population of 2,746,164 (as of 2021 estimates), making it the 22nd largest in the nation. It is also the central core of the larger of only two major urban areas located within the Great Basin (the other being Reno, Nevada). Salt Lake C ...
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Carson City, Nevada
Carson City is an independent city and the capital of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 58,639, making it the sixth largest city in Nevada. The majority of the city's population lives in Eagle Valley, on the eastern edge of the Carson Range, a branch of the Sierra Nevada, about south of Reno. The city is named after the mountain man Kit Carson. The town began as a stopover for California-bound immigrants, but developed into a city with the Comstock Lode, a silver strike in the mountains to the northeast. The city has served as Nevada's capital since statehood in 1864; for much of its history it was a hub for the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, although the tracks were removed in 1950. Before 1969, Carson City was the county seat of Ormsby County. That year the state legislature abolished the county and included its territory into a revised city charter for a Consolidated Municipality of Carson City. With the consolidation, the city limits ...
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Overland Telegraph Company
The Overland Telegraph Company was one of the organizations responsible for constructing the Electrical telegraph, telegraph line which resulted in the first transcontinental telegraph, first transcontinental telegraph network in the United States. The company built the section of line between Fort Churchill State Historic Park, Fort Churchill, Nevada Territory (where it connected to existing telegraph networks in California) and Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. The first messages between California and the Utah Territory were sent via the new line on the evening of October 24, 1861, completing the transcontinental network. (The section of line between the eastern United States and Salt Lake City had been completed by the Pacific Telegraph Company a few days prior.) Soon after the line's completion, the Overland Telegraph Company was absorbed into the California State Telegraph Company, which itself became a part of the Western Union, Western Union Telegraph Company in 1867. Histor ...
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