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To test the new telegraph system, Morse sent a business partner in Baltimore to receive his message– “What hath God wrought”– from the US Capitol Building.
the myths behind American expansion and altering the ways people view history in general.
Just like the Wild West, the Pony Express itself had to come to an end. Even before the service began, the country viewed it as only a temporary solution that would be replaced by a transcontinental telegraph line.
Although a crude electrical telegraph was created in 1809, the device’s full potential wasn’t realized for another 25 years. Everything changed when Samuel Morse – an art and design professor at New York University – found a way to send signals by wire in 1835. His improved machine employed pulses of current to deflect an electromagnet, which
in turn moved a marker that etched dots and dashes onto a sheet of paper. This system of dots and dashes became known as Morse Code.
Once he’d perfected his design, Morse began trying to promote his telegraph. It proved to be difficult. Even after he successfully demonstrated the new technology in 1838, it took another five years for Congress to give him permission to build an “experimental line” between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Morse put the government’s $30,000 grant to good use. By May 24, 1844,
the 40-mile line was ready. To test the new telegraph system, Morse sent a business partner in Baltimore to receive his message – “What hath God wrought” – from the US Capitol Building. It worked perfectly. In less than ten years, most urban sections of the East were in constant communication with one another.
Exchanging messages between the East and West via telegraph was a more complicated undertaking. Unlike today’s phones – which operate wirelessly – telegraph stations had to be
connected to each other with a physical line. Oddly enough, the first transatlantic line was laid on the seabed in 1858 (it broke after three weeks, but proved it was possible for the Eastern and Western Hemispheres to stay in contact). In 1860, the concept of a transcontinental network moved closer to reality after Congress passed “An Act to Facilitate Communication between the Atlantic and Pacific States by Electric Telegraph” – better known as the Pacific Telegraph Act. President James Buchanan signed the bill into effect that June. The Pacific Telegraph Act stated that the government would devote $40,000 a year to the completion of a transcontinental line for up to a decade. Western Union won the rights to build
it. However, two smaller outfits – California’s Overland Telegraph Company and Nebraska’s Pacific Telegraph Company – dealt with the actual construction on behalf of Western Union.
On July 4, 1861, the two companies began work on the 2,000-mile telegraph line. To increase productivity, the Pacific Telegraph Company started in Omaha, Nebraska, and moved westward; the Overland Telegraph Company worked eastward from Carson City, Nevada. They met in Salt Lake City on October 24, 1861 – less than four months after the first lines were raised.
The transcontinental telegraph heralded
the demise of the Pony Express. Even before
the line’s completion, the company had been bleeding money. By October 1861, the Pony Express had lost around $200,000 – in addition to the $500,000 Russell, Majors, and Waddell already owed their creditors. The new telegraph system made the company obsolete. On October 26 – just two days after the line was finished – the Pony Express closed for good.
Samuel Morse, creator of Morse Code and the first telegraph line between Baltimore and the U.S. Capitol.
Despite its very brief existence, the Pony Express holds a disproportionately large place in the American imagination. Thanks to the efforts of people like Buffalo Bill, its legacy has only grown over time. In a sense, the company has become part of the myth of the Wild West. But more than anything else, the Pony Express reminds us of a lost time when people weren’t always connected to one another – which seems almost as fascinating as the rugged riders and the challenges they faced.
The Pacific Telegraph route, the western half of the First Transcontinental Telegraph line in the U.S., was the demise of the Pony Express.
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J. Calvin Smith U.S. Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division
The Pony Express reminds us of a lost time when people weren’t always connected to one another.