The headline: "The completion of the Telegraph," Deseret News, July 23, 1861.
"Utah has not seceded but is firm for the Constitution and laws of our once happy country," the first telegram out of Salt Lake City assured America's leadership.
A small crowd of fascinated Utahns gathered around the telegraph in its new headquarters at about 68 S. Main to witness the first message conveyed by electricity across the miles to Cleveland. The marvel of near-instantaneous communication was the answer to pleas begun by Utah Territory leaders in 1853 for an "electric stream" connecting the territory with the rest of the United States.
Now, after years of relative isolation on their new frontier, Utahns could communicate immediately via electricity with people on both coasts.
Brigham Young's telegraphed assurance that Utah Territory remained true to the Union was more than mere posturing. With the national fabric unraveling at the Mason-Dixon Line over slavery, the fealty of new states and territories in the West was of paramount importance to national leaders trying to prevent civil war and the dissolution of the Union.
One of the first messages back to Salt Lake City from the East was from President Abraham Lincoln. Completion of the telegraph line from coast to coast was "auspicious of the stability and union of the Republic," the president said in a return message to Brigham Young.
Ironically, Lincoln had been one of the detractors when plans were first broached for a transcontinental telegraph line. He glumly predicted that it would be impossible to get poles and equipment across the vast expanses of prairie between centers of civilization and that Indians would not leave them in place anyway.
But the impending threat of civil strife was a major impetus to speed completion of telegraph lines coast to coast. Following a route mapped by telecommunications pioneer Edward Creighton, crews worked frantically from Carson City, Nev., on the west and Omaha, Neb., on the east. They met Oct. 18, 1861, in Salt Lake City, where the last pole was set. Wires were linked Oct. 24, and a new era of communication began.
It hadn't been easy. The route covered hundreds of miles of prairie and desert, where no trees grew. Poles to string wire had to come from forested areas, and Creighton stockpiled thousands of them in Omaha, freighting them by wagon along the route.
Utah's position roughly midway was crucial both for installing line and for contributing poles and workers. The territory provided men and wagons to transport poles and equipment, and several Utah contractors were hired to harvest trees from Echo and Weber canyons to keep the project moving.
One of them, Brigham Young's son John, attempted to renege on his contract, complaining that the money the telegraph companies were paying was not sufficient for the work.
Brigham Young got the providers together, looked over their contracts and then demanded that they meet the initial terms, on pain of excommunication from the church.
Indians were a problem. Telegraph workers tried to enlist their support by hiring them to work on the system. In one case, an Indian employee grabbed a live wire in his hand and was knocked head-over-heels. The amazed native warned his companions against the "evil spirits" inhabiting the wire. Indians on horseback tended to speed underneath the wires as fast as they could go, with their arms wrapped around their heads to protect themselves.
Company officials capitalized on this superstition by trying to convince Indians leaders that the humming telegraph lines were the "voice of the Great Spirit Manitou." Two chiefs, one in Fort Laramie and another at Fort Bridger, were persuaded to exchange messages via the new technology. They agreed to meet at the half-way point between the two locations and were "amazed to learn that their messages actually had traveled over the wires to beat them to the meeting place.
Almost simultaneously with the completion of the transcontinental line, Brigham Young began planning regional lines to connect the far-flung Mormon communities in the West.
At an April 10, 1865, meeting, he organized the territory's settlements for construction of Deseret Telegraph. Each county was assigned to raise funds for wire and insulators and to furnish ox teams to transport supplies from Wyoming and Nebraska.
Beginning in 1865, young men in the communities were enlisted to attend telegraphy school in Salt Lake City, while at the same time poles were being set and wire strung. On Jan. 15, 1867, the line was open to St. George. The northern line to Franklin, Idaho, went into service three years later. By mid-1871, more than 600 miles of line were in operation, and materials had been purchased for an additional 400 miles of branch lines in the territorial system.
Brigham Young had a telegraph in his own office and a telegrapher accompanied him on tours of the territory, tapping into available lines when necessary.
One young person fascinated with the telegraph was William A.C. Bryan. At 13, he accompanied his family on a trip from their home in Nephi to Salt Lake City. When he spotted telegraph poles, he jumped from the wagon and ran to a pole, climbing up to "watch the messages going through." Rewarded only with the hum on the wires, he remained enthralled, and when he got to Salt Lake City, he headed for the small adobe quarters on Main Street that housed the Western Union offices.
Young Bryan watched the operators clicking away at their key pads and resolved upon a life work. A few years later, he was among those brought to the capital for training. One of his instructors was John C. Clowes, who came to Utah to initiate the service for one of the telegraph companies and remained as a convert to the LDS Church.
With a short time-out to serve in the cavalry to protect central Utah communities against Indian attacks, Bryan went to work as a telegrapher on Christmas Day 1866. Those who mastered the Morse system of communications became a brotherhood (soon joined by women) of American technology pioneers.
Initially, the cost to send a wire from Salt Lake City to New York was $7.50 for 10 words. By 1880, the rate was down to $1.50 for a message the same length.
The Deseret system was purchased by Western Union in 1900.
In 1832, young scientist Samuel F.B. Morse had sent the first telegraph message in history on a line running from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. His message: "What hath God wrought?"
With the vision, sweat and faith of hundreds of Americans, what had been wrought was a marvel of communication that erased miles and hours and brought the Territory of Utah within easy reach of the rest of the country.