Insulator Post

This telegraph line I found in July and I made the one hour drive this morning to take some photographs of the installation.  This collection is a excellent example of the once common telegraph system that spread to all corners of America.  The land line telegraph established itself alongside the railroad industry.  The railroad right of ways made an unobstructed linear space ideal for stringing up wires on poles. 

People throughout history have been wary of change and technology.  The early railroad bosses were skeptical of telegraphy with it's instruments and batteries and wire.  Not to mention the labor involved in maintaining the lines.  Once the usefulness and reliability of Morse code transmissions over wire was proven an industry was born and quickly flourished.  Similarly in the early days of radio technology ship owners were reluctant to waste resources to take on an extra crew member or two in the form of radio officers.  Before the sinking of the Titanic radios aboard ship was optional.  Radio caught on fast once it proved useful to saving lives.  

Pictures of telephone poles may not be of much interest to most but this is an example of our early communications infrastructure and I believe is worth preserving. Once a common sight to countless boys walking the tracks these sights will soon be just memories.