A book cover featuring an illustration of men working on laying a telegraph line, with mountains in the background. The title 'First Telegraph Line across the Continent Charles Brown's 1861 Diary' and the editors' names are displayed.
First Telegraph Line Across the Continent: Diary of Charles Brown in 1861 | Lee Booksellers
Proudly Made in USA, GROW Nebraska, Shop Small
A book cover featuring an illustration of men working on laying a telegraph line, with mountains in the background. The title 'First Telegraph Line across the Continent Charles Brown's 1861 Diary' and the editors' names are displayed.
First Telegraph Line Across the Continent: Diary of Charles Brown in 1861 | Lee Booksellers
Proudly Made in USA, GROW Nebraska, Shop Small

First Telegraph Line Across the Continent: Diary of Charles Brown in 1861 | Lee Booksellers

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The transcontinental telegraph was a remarkable technological feat that had major consequences for the West and the nation as a whole. Yet relatively little has been written about it.

Recently re-discovered in the Smithsonian Institution collections, this previously unpublished diary is the only known extensive source written about the day-to-day construction of one segment of the first transcontinental telegraph line.

Brown's lively narrative is filled with 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 even the issues of secession and Civil War.

  • 133 pages 
  • 9 chapters 
  • Published by Nebraska State Historical Society 2011

Since 1965 Lee Booksellers has been selling new and out-of-print books focusing on Nebraska and the Great Plains. Based in Lincoln, Nebraska.

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