Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Transcontinental Telegraph On Western Wednesday...!

I don't think we have any idea what a job the Western Union company had when it began this enterprise. Probably they didn't either!

There must have been so many obstacles along the way that were unforeseen, the company must have felt like throwing in the towel more than once.

Western Union completes the first transcontinental telegraph line

On this day in 1861, workers of the Western Union Telegraph Company link the eastern and western telegraph networks of the nation at Salt Lake City, Utah, completing a transcontinental line that for the first time allows instantaneous communication between Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Stephen J. Field, chief justice of California, sent the first transcontinental telegram to President Abraham Lincoln, predicting that the new communication link would help ensure the loyalty of the western states to the Union during the Civil War.

The push to create a transcontinental telegraph line had begun only a little more than year before when Congress authorized a subsidy of $40,000 a year to any company building a telegraph line that would join the eastern and western networks. The Western Union Telegraph Company, as its name suggests, took up the challenge, and the company immediately began work on the critical link that would span the territory between the western edge of Missouri and Salt Lake City.

The obstacles to building the line over the sparsely populated and isolated western plains and mountains were huge. Wire and glass insulators had to be shipped by sea to San Francisco and carried eastward by horse-drawn wagons over the Sierra Nevada. Supplying the thousands of telegraph poles needed was an equally daunting challenge in the largely treeless Plains country, and these too had to be shipped from the western mountains. Indians also proved a problem. In the summer of 1861, a party of Sioux warriors cut part of the line that had been completed and took a long section of wire for making bracelets. Later, however, some of the Sioux wearing the telegraph-wire bracelets became sick, and a Sioux medicine man convinced them that the great spirit of the "talking wire" had avenged its desecration. Thereafter, the Sioux left the line alone, and the Western Union was able to connect the East and West Coasts of the nation much earlier than anyone had expected and a full eight years before the transcontinental railroad would be completed.

Just imagine, the first time ever that coast-to-coast communications could be carried out almost in real time! Certainly did a lot to hasten the start of the information age, don't you think?

Coffee out on the patio once again today, my friends.

9 comments:

  1. The telegraph put the Pony Express out of business too.
    Coffee will do!

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  2. Hey Rob...
    Everything really started changing big time with the completion, I expect.

    Thanks for coming by this morning!

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  3. Wasn't there an old John Wayne movie about that? Gotta look for it! Can't wait for your coffee - I'll bring fresh rolls!

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  4. Hard to imagine a time without modern communication. Although sometimes it might be good to unplug. Coffee sounds real good about now.

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  5. Sounds like it not for that medicine man, it would have taken a lot longer....patio and one of CM's rolls sounds good :))

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  6. I have read how the Indians cut the lines but it never mentioned them falling ill and the Medicine Man part. Another good lesson learned here.

    Can't have coffee this morning not even water until after a medical test thing. I am not happy right now.

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  7. The pony express only operated for 18 months before the telegraph put it out of business. Of course it lives on and on in cowboy movies. . .

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  8. Hey Phyllis...
    I wouldn't doubt that there was a John Wayne movie about it at all!

    Thanks for dropping by this morning!



    Hey Linda M...
    I feel that we are often over loaded with information nowadays. Unplugging for a while might be a good thing.

    Thanks for coming over today!



    Hey Mamahen...
    I'm surprised that the Indians were not a bigger problem than they were, to tell the truth!

    Thanks for the visit this morning!



    Hey Jo...
    So many details in history that we miss out on. Always a fun find to run across some new facts!

    Thanks, sweetie, for dropping in today!



    Hey Hey Dizzy...
    I reckon it will always live on in our minds, don't you?

    Thanks for coming by today!

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  9. Now everyone walks around with a telephone in their pocket. If they forget and leave it at home they go into withdrawal.

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