Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1915-02-04
Wonderful Achievement

The Pacific oceans were united,
telephonically speaking, when
Alexander Graham Bell who in
vented the telephone in 1875,
talked directly TO Thomas A.
Watson in San Francisco.
Although John j. Carly chief
engineer of the Bell Telephone
system, with hundreds of en-
gineers have worked many
years perfecting telephone
equipment that would make
the great feat possible, the hon
or of sending the first trans
continental message fell to the
inventor of the telephone, and
thus it was DR.. Bell and Mr.
Watson were at either end of
the line last Monday.
In a little workshop in Bos-
ton, June 2, 1875, it was Alex
ander Graham Bell who spoke
and Thomas A. Watson who
heard the first mes age ever
sent by telephone. Come here
Watson, | want you," were the
first words ever conveyed over
a wire. That wire was only
sixty feet in length. The line
used Monday is 3400 miles long.
A bit of sentiment that en-
tered into the celebration of
the opening of the transcon-
tinental line was that the sixty
feet of wire used in the first
talk in Boston was spliced into
the line Monday, thirty feet of
it at New York and thirty feet
at San Francisco.
Ever since The telephone was
discovered, America, the land
of its birth, has kept the lead
using more telephones than all
the rest of the world. More
than twenty-one million miles
of wire in this country now
unite nine-million telephones
in 10000 cities. towns ard viii
lagos. All the rest of the world
has less than five million tele-
phones.
In 1876 the longest telephone
line in the world was from Bos
ton to Cambridge, two miles; in
1884 it was extended to New
York. 235 miles. Chicago and
New York were connected in
1895, and in 1911 New York
could say "HelIo" to Denver.
In the forty years since the
telephone was invented, nearly
hundred types of trs nsmitters
and numerous repeating ins,ru-
ments and other devices have
been used, and discarded for
something better, but it is as
serted that no single new dis.
covery has been responsible for
this latest and greatest achieve
ment in the telephone art. 1t
was accomplished by gradual
improvements in all equipment,
by which mile by mile the dis
lance of possible telephone
communication was extended,
each year a little further, until
the dream of transcontinental
communication has been real
il ID.
In the two circuits of the
transcontinensal line there are
approximately six million
pounds of copper wire, or about
two hundred carloads. This
wire is stretched on 10000
poles, which if they were load
ed on railroad csrs would make
twenty trains of thirty cars
each.
The route of the transcon
tinental telephone line is from
New York to Pl tsburgh, thence
to Chicago, Davenpo1t, Des
Moines and Omaha, Lincoln to
Denver. From Denver the line
bends north to avoid high alti-
tudes, and then runs directly
westward to Salt Lake City and
to San Francisco.
Stationed along this great
stretch of telephone line the
day it was opened were repair
m en- every few miles, in the
big centers, in the little towns,
on the prairies, in the noun
tains, and cut on the desert,
ready to splice the wires in case
they were torn down by sleet
or wind, to solder a break or
replace an insulator broken by
storm or misehievous boy.
Like soldiers on picket duty,
these repairmen will be kept on
constant vigil, night and day,
in good weather and in bad, for
it is advertised that this line is
soon to be opened to the public
for constant use.
1t is understood that when