Alta California Telegraph Company

The Alta California Telegraph Company (also referred to simply as the Alta Telegraph Company) was a telegraph company which operated in the mid-19th century within the state of California prior to the construction of the Transcontinental Telegraph. It was organized in 1853, and incorporated in January 1854 ^[1] and began constructing its first line that same year, stretching from Sacramento to Marysville and extending up into the foothills of the adjacent Sierra Nevada mountains. In subsequent years, a line was constructed between Sacramento and Benicia. From Benicia, a branch line was extended to Vallejo and the US Navy yard at Mare Island.

The principal offices of the company were located in San Francisco (153 Montgomery Street at Merchant St.), and Sacramento in the historic Hastings Building on Second Street.

Telegraph Road

In April 1859, a cable was run across the Carquinez Strait between Benicia and Martinez,^[2] and a connecting line constructed from Martinez to Oakland over the Berkeley Hills (then called the Contra Costa Range).^[3] It was this line which gave rise to the name "Telegraph Road" for the thoroughfare which the line followed down the western slope of the hills, which later became Telegraph Avenue in Oakland and Berkeley.

Lawsuit

From Oakland, the Alta Telegraph Company laid a cable under San Francisco Bay to San Francisco, but the cable failed to work. An alternate route was then used, extending around the southern end of the bay via San Jose. This route, however, was already used by the competing California State Telegraph Company under a special act of the State of California. The California State Telegraph Company successfully sued the Alta Telegraph Company for infringing on what they considered a monopoly grant. The suit was upheld by the California Supreme Court.^[4]

Mergers

Soon after the lawsuit, the Alta Telegraph Company decided to merge into the California State Telegraph Company, which itself was eventually incorporated into the nationwide Western Union.

External links

• Robert A. Siegel Auctions, Alta Telegraph ephemera
• Image of a telegraph message order, 1860, Alta California Telegraph Co.

References

1. California State Railroad Museum website
2. The History of Contra Costa County, Frederick J. Hulanski, Elms Publishing, 1917, p.314
3. Plat of Northern Part of the Rancho San Antonio, Surveyed 1858-59, Oakland Public Library Collection
4. California State Telegraph Company v. Alta Telegraph Company, 22 Cal 398 (1863)

• "The History of the Telegraph in California", Alice L. Bates, in the Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1914).