Telegraph Office Monument - Salt Lake City, Utah - 8 July 2018

The first transcontinental telegraph (completed October 24, 1861) was a line that connected the existing telegraph network in the

eastern United States The Eastern United States, commonly referred to as the American East, Eastern America, or simply the East, is the region of the United States to the east of the Mississippi River. In some cases the term may refer to a smaller area or the East C ...

to a small network in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, by means of a link between

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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 sout ...

and

Carson City 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 th ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

, via

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

. It was a milestone in electrical engineering and in the formation of the

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. It served as the only method of near-instantaneous communication between the

east East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

and west coasts during the 1860s. For comparison, in 1841, the news of the death of President

William Henry Harrison William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773April 4, 1841) was an American military officer and politician who served as the ninth president of the United States. Harrison died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841, and had the shortest pres ...

had taken 110 days to reach

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Background

After the development of efficient

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

systems in the 1830s, their use saw almost explosive growth in the 1840s.

Samuel Morse Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph ...

's first experimental line between Washington, D.C. and

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—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 lines was soon constructed in the booming economy of California. California was admitted to the United States in 1850, the first state on the Pacific coast. Major efforts ensued to integrate California with the other states, including sea, overland mail pioneered by George Chorpenning, the

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 Pike ...

, and passenger services such as Butterfield Overland Mail. Proposals for the subsidy of a telegraph line to California were made in Congress throughout the 1850s, and in 1860 the U.S. Post Office was authorized to spend $40,000 per year to build and maintain an overland line. The year before, the California State Legislature had authorized a similar subsidy of $6,000 per year.

Construction

Construction of the first transcontinental telegraph was the work of

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company cha ...

, which Hiram Sibley, Jeptha Wade, and

Ezra Cornell Ezra Cornell (; January 11, 1807 – December 9, 1874) was an American businessman, politician, and philanthropist. He was the founder of Western Union and a co-founder of Cornell University. He also served as President of the New York Agricul ...

had established in 1856 by merging companies operating east of the

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. A second significant step was the passing of the

Telegraph Act Telegraph Act is a stock short title which used to be used for legislation in the United Kingdom, relating to telegraphy. The Bill for an Act with this short title may have been known as a Telegraph Bill during its passage through Parliament. ...

by the

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in 1860, which authorized the government to open bids for the construction of a telegraph line between

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and California and regulated the service to be provided. Eventually, the only bidder would be Sibley, because all competitors—Theodore Adams, Benjamin Ficklin and John Harmon—withdrew at the last minute. Later they joined Sibley in his effort. Similar to the

First transcontinental railroad North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail netwo ...

, elimination of the gap in the telegraph service between Fort Kearny in

and Fort Churchill in

was planned to be divided between teams that would be advancing the construction in opposite directions. The

Pacific Telegraph Company The Pacific Telegraph Company was one of the organizations responsible for constructing the telegraph line which resulted in the first transcontinental telegraph network in the United States. The company built the section of line between Julesb ...

would build west from Nebraska and the

Overland Telegraph Company The Overland Telegraph Company was one of the organizations responsible for constructing the telegraph line which resulted in the first transcontinental telegraph network in the United States. The company built the section of line between Fort C ...

would build east from Nevada's connection to the California system. James Gamble, an experienced telegraph builder in California, was put in charge of the western crew, and Edward Creighton was responsible for the eastern crew. From

, a crew in charge of James Street advanced westward, and W.H. Stebbins's grew eastward toward Fort Kearny. Creighton's crew erected its first pole on 4 July 1861. When the project was completed in October 1861, they had planted 27,500 poles holding of single-strand iron wire over a terrain that was not always inviting. California Chief Justice Stephen Field sent one of the first messages from San Francisco to

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...

, using the occasion to assure the president of California's allegiance to the Union. The construction coincided with

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

combat to the southeast. The entire cost of the system was half a million dollars (equivalent to $ in ).

Operation

Difficulties did not stop with the completion of the project. Keeping it in operation faced multiple problems: (a) inclement weather in the form of lightning bolts, strong winds, and heavy snow damaged both poles and the wire; (b) rubbing on the poles by

bison Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'', found only in North A ...

from time to time sent down sections of the telegraph, eventually contributing to their demise; (c) the system had to be rerouted through

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

to avoid Confederate attempts to cut the line in Missouri to disrupt communications among Union forces; (d) Native Americans soon started to do the same farther west as part of their hostilities with the Army. Financially, the First Transcontinental Telegraph was a big success from the beginning. The charge during the first week of operation was per word, whereas the Telegraph Act of 1860 had specified 30 cents. The telegraph line immediately made the

obsolete, which officially ceased operations two days later. The overland telegraph line was operated until 1869, when it was replaced by a multi-line telegraph that had been constructed alongside the route of the

References

Bibliography

* * {{cite journal, last1=Jepsen, first1=Thomas, title=The Telegraph Comes to Colorado: A New Technology and Its Consequences, journal=Essays and Monographs in Colorado History, date=1987, volume=7, pages=1–25

External links and sources