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1864 "Old Growth" Redwood CPRR of CAL. Original Construction Telegraph Pole
The telegraph lines built along the CPRR grade through California and over
the Sierras were carried over much of that distance on 24 foot (18' above
ground) redwood poles. Hewn from "old growth" redwood native to California,
these magnificent poles were eight inches square at the base and tapered
to six inches square at the top. The telegraph wires were attached to insulators
mounted in blocks spiked to the pole at and just below the top. Seen above
is the top two feet cut from such a now extremely rare — if not all but
unique — surviving original construction CPRR telegraph pole which had been
erected during the winter of 1864-65 just uphill from the original CPRR grade
near NewCastle, California, some 32 miles East of Sacramento.
Over the next fifty years these original poles were either removed (by
cutting them off near ground level) or abandoned. Those near NewCastle were
taken out of service during the time of the Hood relocation of the original
grade between 1904 and 1908. In June, 2002, while exploring the now heavily
overgrown steep hillside above the original CPRR grade near old MP32, G.J. "Chris" Graves and Charles "Chuck" Sweet came across — to their great surprise
and delight — a 12 1/2 foot section of one of these poles which had remarkably
survived for almost 140 years. The specimen illustrated above is from that
pole.
The background image seen in the above illustration is a period view
of the CPRR
grade at NewCastle (Hart #5) taken very near where this pole was
found. Standing next to the track in the lower right corner is an identical
redwood telegraph pole. The double red arrow indicates that pole's insulator
block as well as to the spike holes left in the surviving pole section where
a similar block was attached.
Although just six inches wide, some 190 tree growth rings are visible in
a cross section of the pole (see below). At a minimum this would mean that
some of the wood it is made from of grew not later than the 1670's. Depending
on how deep in the massive redwood log from which the pole was cut, however,
it is quite probable that the wood is actually many hundreds of years older!
-BCC
> Lawrence K. Hersh reports that he found the spacing of the CPRR
telegraph poles to be 30 poles per mile (176 ft span) in Nevada.
Courtesy of the Bruce C. Cooper Collection.
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