Timeline of North American telegraphy

Timeline

Early events

• 1826-27: Harrison Gray Dyar successfully experiments with electrical telegraphy but abandons the pursuit.
• 1836: David Alter of Pennsylvania develops a working electrical telegraph system, but never develops the idea into a practical system.
• Jan 1837: Samuel Chester Reid proposes that the U.S. Congress fund an optical telegraph from New York to New Orleans.
• Sept 1837: Morse employs Alfred Vail to improve his telegraph from demonstration purposes for a share of future patent rights.
• Sept 1837: Samuel Morse files for a patent for his electrical telegraph in the United States.
• 6 Jan 1838: Samuel Morse sends his first public demonstration message over two miles of wire at Speedwell Ironworks in New Jersey. Morse also demonstrates his invention to the Franklin Institute and President Martina Van Buren in early 1838.
• April 1838: Congressman Francis Ormand Jonathan Smith proposes to give $30,000 for Morse to build a line to demonstrate the telegraph, but the bill does not pass.
• 20 June 1840: Morse obtains patent.
• 1843
• 1844

  Spread of telegraphic lines

• 1845

• 1846
• 1847
• 1848
• 1849
• 1850
• 1851:
• 22 September 1853: First line in San Francisco opens between Lobos Hill and Telegraph Hill, superseding a four year old optical line.
• 26 October 1853: Service extended from San Franscico to San Jose, Stockton, Sacramento, and Marysville.
• January 1854: Service from Sacramento extended east to Mormon Island, California, Diamond Springs, California, and Nevada City, California.
• 14 February 1854: Marshall, Texas connected to Louisiana line.
• Later 1854: Houston, Texas, Galveston, Texas, and other Texas towns reached by telegraph line.
• 1855: Internal service within Oregon begins, with link between Portland, Oregon and Oregon City, Oregon.
• 1856: Service within Oregon extended south to Corvallis. Link to San Francisco not completed until 1864.
• 1856: In the far northeast, submarine cable is laid across the Cabot Straight from Aspy Bay in Nova Scotia to Cape Ray in Newfoundland. A land line from Cape Ray is also run to St. John's. This eventually led to news boats being stationed off Cape Race to get news from European steamers before they reached Halifax.

  Spread to continental and intercontinental service

• 1858
• 1859
• 1860

• 1861
• 10 October 1863: Line opens to Denver, Colorado.
• March 1864: Service from San Francisco reaches north to Portland, Oregon.
• 25 October 1864: Service reaches north to Seattle, Washington.
• 1865: International Telecommunication Union is formed
• 18 July 1866: A new transatlantic telegraph cable between North America and Europe is successfully completed.
• 1870: Telegraph lines from Britain are connected to India.
• 20 November 1871: Service to Winnipeg opens.
• 1871: Practical duplex telegraphy system, allowing two messages to be sent over wire at the same time, one in each direction.
• 1872: Dallas, Texas reached by telegraph line.
• October 1872: Australia is linked to the world system by a submarine telegraph line between Darwin and the Dutch East Indies.
• 1874: Thomas Edison sells his invention of quadruplex telegraph to Western Union for $10,000. It allows a total of four separate signals to be transmitted and received on a single wire at the same time
• October 1902: The first trans-Pacific line links Brisbane, Australia to Vancouver, Canada.

  End of telegraph era

• 27 January 2006: Western Union discontinues telegram services. Indian company BSNL continues telegraphic service into 2013.