This is where the Pony Express ended in 1861, and where the modern era of communications began. Two wires were joined in a telegraph office at 83 South Main St.

Crews building from California and Nebraska, stringing galvanized iron wire on poles, bridged the desert gap and linked the nation with almost instantaneous communications by Morse code.

Transcontinental telephone service would follow in 1915, and the first cellular phone call was in 1973. Now we take all this progress for granted.