LINCOLN — More than 150 years ago, after an Omaha company strung the first transcontinental telegraph line across Nebraska, the trials and triumphs of the technological feat are emerging from the dots and dashes of history.
Dennis Mihelich, Creighton University history professor emeritus, will share highlights from a recent book about the project at noon Thursday at the Nebraska History Museum, 15th and P Streets, Lincoln.
Mihelich and James E. Potter recently edited "First Telegraph Line Across the Continent: Charles Brown's 1861 Diary," published by the Nebraska State Historical Society. Potter is senior research historian at the Historical Society.
Recently rediscovered in the Smithsonian Institution collections, the previously unpublished diary is the only known extensive source written about the day-to-day construction of one segment of the first transcontinental telegraph line, said Lynne Ireland, a Historical Society spokeswoman.
Like the transcontinental railroad several years later, the telegraph line was built by two companies, one working west from Omaha and one working east from California. The Omaha company was headed by Edward Creighton, a businessman who was the namesake of Creighton University.
As Creighton's assistant, Brown wrote about events along a portion of the route. His diary begins in Julesburg, Colo., and ends in central Wyoming. It includes work in places such as Chimney Rock and Scotts Bluff in western Nebraska and Fort Laramie in Wyoming. Fort Kearny, in central Nebraska, also is mentioned.
Brown's narrative includes period detail about individuals, road ranches, attitudes toward Indians, public promotion of the spirit of Manifest Destiny, difficulties facing construction crews, the nature of frontier law enforcement and the issues of secession and Civil War.
Mihelich's talk is part of the Historical Society's Brown Bag History Forum and is open to the public and free of charge. It will be recorded for later broadcast on 5CityTV and posting on YouTube. For more information, call 402-471-4782 or visit www.nebraskahistory.org.
The 133-page book is available for $14.95 from the historical society, 800-833-6747, or click here. An online excerpt at www.nebraskahistory.org/telegraph includes the book's prologue.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com
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