Russian–American Telegraph
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The Russian–American Telegraph, also known as the Western Union Telegraph Expedition and the Collins Overland Telegraph, was an attempt by the Western Union Telegraph Company from 1865 to 1867 to lay a telegraph line from San Francisco, California, to Moscow, Russia.
The route of the $3,000,000 undertaking (equivalent to $59.7 million today)[1] was intended to travel from California via Oregon, Washington Territory, the Colony of British Columbia and Russian America, under the Bering Sea and cross the broad breadth of the Eurasian Continent to Moscow, where lines would communicate with the rest of Europe. It was proposed as a much longer alternative to the challenge of long, deep underwater cables in the Atlantic, having only to cross the comparatively narrow Bering Strait underwater between North America and Siberia.
Laying the cable across Siberia proved more difficult than expected. Meanwhile, Cyrus West Field's transatlantic cable was successfully completed, leading to the abandonment in 1867 of the trans-Russian effort. A Government of Canada historic plaque adds these specifics: "In 1867 ... construction ceased at Fort Stager at the confluence of the Kispyap and Skeena rivers. The section from New Westminster to the Cariboo was bought by the Canadian Government in 1880."[2]
In spite of the project's economic failure, many regard aspects of the effort a success on the weight of various benefits the exploration brought to the regions that were traversed. To date, no entities have attempted a communications cable across the Bering Sea, with all extant submarine communications cables that travel westbound from North America following more southerly routes across much longer stretches of the North Pacific Ocean, connecting to Asia in Japan and then on to the Asian mainland.