Show TELEPHONE TRI COMPLETE CIRCUIT FROM NEW YORK TO SAN FRANCISCO FIRST MESSAGE BY INVENTOR line officially opened jan 25 1915 miles in length trans trana mission dear and distinct new york from froin the floor of oc a new york skyscraper in the office of 0 theodore N vail president of the american telephone and telegraph company Alex alexander onder graham bell monday afternoon telephoned to thomas A watson in san francisco sending the first message ever telephoned across the continent although engineers und and scientists have worked for nearly forty years perfecting transmitters receivers lines cables switchboards and various telephone apparatus that all combined made transcontinental telephoning possible john J carty chi chief 0 f engineer of we the boll bell telephone system tern insisted that the inventor of the el ephone lione should haye have tile the honor of sending the first ocean to ocean message and thus it was that dr bell and mr dir watson were at either end ot of the line monday afternoon in a little workshop in boston juno june 2 1875 it was alexander graham boll who spoke and thomas A watson who heard the first message ever sent by telephone come liere here watson I 1 want you were the first words ever conveyed over a wire that wire was only sixty feet in length the line used monday la Is miles long A bit of sentiment that entered into the celebration of the opening of tho the transcontinental line was that tile the sixty feet of wire used in the first drat I 1 DI A 4 copyright by harris ewing ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL talk in boston was spliced into the tha una 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 clafer towns and villages all the res rest t sf ala world has less than five million telephones in 1876 the longest telephone line in the world was from boston to cambridge two miles in 1884 it was extended to new york miles chicago and new york were connected in 1895 and in 1911 now york could sa say hello to denver in the forty years since the telo phone was invented nearly a hundred types of transmitters tr an and numerous repeating instruments and other devices havo have been used and discarded for something better but it Is asserted that no single new discovery has been responsible for this latest and greatest achievement in the telephone art in the two circuits of the line there are ip proximately six million pounds of cupper copper wire or about two hundred carloads this wire Is stretched on 1 poles which it if they were loaded on railroad ad bars cars would make twenty trains of thirty cars each the route of the transcontinental telephone line Is from new york to pittsburgh thence to chicago davenport DOT deg If tines omaha lincoln denver salt lake city and to san francisco it Is understood that uie rate will bo be about 2100 tor for a three minute talk from new york bosan francisco Francl co stationed along this great stretch of telephone line the day it was opened were repairmen every few miles in the big centers in the little towns on the prairies in the mountains and out on the desert ready to splice the wires in case thoy they were torn tom down by sleet or wind to solder a break or replace an insulator broken by a storm or a mischievous boy like soldiers soldier 4 on picket duty these repairmen will be kept on an constant vigil algil night and day in good weather and in bad for it Is advertised that this line is soon scion to be opened to the public for constant use 4 |