This marker stands near the intersection of Glover Road and Telegraph Trail and commemorates the first telegraph line built in the west in 1865 by Collins Overland, in partnership with Western Union and the California State Telegraph Company. They were in a race to link North America with Europe from Los Angeles, through British Columbia to Alaska, then across the Bering Strait, and through Russia. It would have been a 10,000 mile link (6,000 km). They lost the race after a line was laid across the ocean floor between Ireland and Newfoundland that same year.
For a while Telegraph Trail was an important transportation route in the Langley region. The line made it as far as Alaska, but was mostly abandoned, except in parts of southern BC. The telegraph line was eventually moved to the Old Yale Road; there was a telegraph office in the Shortreed store west of Aldergrove. The line was also used between New Westminster and the Cariboo gold fields.
About 30 years later (1898 – 1901) the Yukon Telegraph utilized the trail to take the telegraph line from Ashcroft to Telegraph Creek and on to Dawson City during the Klondike gold rush. The telegraph line that connected the Yukon with the outside world operated for the next 113 years (1974). Be sure to visit the Telegraph Room when you’re at the Fort Langley CNR Station.
Proposed route of the Collins Overland Telegraph. Wikipedia image. Author: Colton, J. H. Publisher: Colton, J. H. Date: 1864
A farm on the Telegraph Trail.
