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.

For comparison, in 1841, the news of the death of President William Henry Harrison had taken 110 days to reach Los Angeles.

Construction of the first transcontinental telegraph was the work of Western Union, which Hiram Sibley, Jeptha Wade, and Ezra Cornell had established in 1856 by merging companies operating east of the Mississippi River.

When the project was completed in October 1861, they had planted 27,500 poles holding 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of single-strand iron wire over a terrain that was not always inviting.

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

[10] The telegraph line immediately made the Pony Express obsolete, which officially ceased operations two days later.