First transcontinental telephone call

Six months later, amidst the celebrations surrounding the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, on January 25, 1915, Alexander Graham Bell, in New York City, repeated his famous statement "Mr. Watson, come here.

I want you," into the telephone, which was heard by his assistant Thomas Augustus Watson in San Francisco, for a long-distance call of 3,400 miles (5,500 km).

Dr. Watson was at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco to receive the call, placed by Bell from the Telephone Building at 15 Dey Street in New York City.

President Woodrow Wilson and the mayors of both cities were also involved in the call as was Theodore Vail listening in from Jekyll Island, Georgia.

Later, President Woodrow Wilson spoke to an audience in San Francisco from the White House and is quoted as saying "It appeals to the imagination to speak across the continent.