Construction of the first Transcontinental Telegraph, with a Pony Express rider passing below. Wood engraving after George M. Ottinger (d. 1919). The transcontinental telegraph did not make the Pony Express redundant because of the high costs of sending a telegram over a long distance, but the transcontinental railroad, completed in 1861, made it far cheaper and faster to send mail over the distance in which the Pony Express briefly operated.

Construction of the first Transcontinental Telegraph, with a Pony Express rider passing below. Wood engraving after George M. Ottinger (d. 1919). The transcontinental telegraph did not make the Pony Express redundant because of the high costs of sending a telegram over a long distance, but the transcontinental railroad, completed in 1861, made it far cheaper and faster to send mail over the distance in which the Pony Express briefly operated.

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