Central Overland Route - Telegraph

Telegraph

Under pressure and subsidizes from the U.S. Congress to establish rapid east-west communication in 1860 Hiram Sibley, the president of the Western Union Company, formed a consortium between Western Union and the telegraph companies in California to construct the First Transcontinental Telegraph. The telegraph line was authorized and subsidized by the U.S. Congress and went from Omaha, Nebraska to Carson City, Nevada. The newly consolidated Overland Telegraph Company of California, which had already built a telegraph line to Carson City, would build the line eastward from Carson City using the newly developed Central Route though Nevada and Utah. At the same time, the Pacific Telegraph Company of Nebraska was formed by Sibley. It would construct a line westward from Omaha, Nebraska along the eastern part of the California and Oregon Trails. The lines would meet at a station in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Telegraph lines, insulators (shipped around Cape Horn to California) and telegraph poles for the line were collected in late 1860, and rapid construction proceeded during the second half of 1861. Major problems were encountered in finding telegraph poles on the tree less plains of the Midwest and the nearly tree less deserts of the Great Basin. The telegraph line from Omaha reached Salt Lake City on October 18, 1861, and the line from Carson City to Salt Lake City was completed on October 24, 1861—about a year ahead of predictions.

Several accounts of travel along the Central Route have been published. In July 1859 Horace Greeley made the trip, at a time when Chorpenning was using only the eastern segment (they reconnected with the Humboldt River trail near present-day Beowawe). Greeley published his detailed observations in his 1860 book "An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco". In October 1860 the English explorer Richard Burton traveled the entire route at a time when the Pony Express was operating. He gave detailed descriptions of each of the way stations in his 1861 book The City of the Saints, Across the Rocky Mountains to California. In the summer of 1861 Samuel Clemens (who only later used the pen name Mark Twain) traveled the route with his brother Orion on their way to Nevada's new territorial capital in Carson City, but provided only sparse descriptions of the road in his 1872 book Roughing It.

In 1869 the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed using the more level route along the Humboldt River to the north—along much of the original California Trail route. Alongside the railroad a telegraph line was also constructed where it was easier to maintain and supply operators, relay stations, etc. The Central Route was now obsolete for the telegraph. After 1869 the stage and freight lines traffic was now carried cheaper and faster on the railroad. The stage and telegraph relay stations were abandoned, and the soldiers at Fort Ruby were transferred north to Fort Halleck to protect the railroad.