From San Francisco to Honolulu: The Story of the Transpacific Cable

Eastern Telegraph Company network in 1901. Public Domain

On the far reaches of the Pacific Coast, atop the craggy rock face of the Ocean Beach coastline sat the Cliff House. It had been built originally in 1863. The ornate, though relatively small resort was built for wealthy patrons, and, in the Golden State, there were plenty of such patrons. The original location survived until it was engulfed in flames on Christmas Day 1894. Six months later, the millionaire Adolph Sutro made plans for its renewal, but with a much grander vision. It opened in 1896 as a Victorian style castle-like resort, boasting eight-stories of bars, parlors, dining rooms, a photo and art gallery, and an unparalleled view of the Pacific Ocean. As Christmas Day in 1902 neared, patrons could no doubt witness the unfolding of one of the most significant events in the history of communication.

Along Ocean Beach and just south of Cliff House, approximately 40,000 people gathered to celebrate the final step in the telegraphic interconnectivity of the entire globe.

Cliff House, circa 1868. Public Domain

The Transatlantic Precursor

Such a historic and massive undertaking had been a topic of debate, not only in business and scientific circles, but also in the halls of Congress. In August of 1858, the Americans and the British had successfully completed the transatlantic cable. The approximate 2,000-nautical-mile-long submarine cable officially connected the two countries, and more efficiently connected the eastern and western hemispheres. On Aug. 16, Queen Victoria and President James Buchanan exchanged congratulatory messages via telegraph along the new cable.

Although the transatlantic cable stopped working after several weeks due to using an old and corroded cable, a great feat had been accomplished. It was accomplished again in 1866, but with better cables, and would remain in operation until 1965.

Telegraphy had made communication far more efficient. Instead of waiting 10 days for a packet steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean with a message, that message could now be transmitted in a matter of hours. If there was a problem, it was that there was no transpacific cable, which meant that if Washington wanted to get a message to Moscow, it would have to send the message eastward across the Atlantic through Great Britain into continental Europe and into Russia.

Finding the Practical Path

On March 2, 1891, Congress passed a law “to enable the President to cause careful soundings to be made between San Francisco, Cal., and Honolulu, in the kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands, for the purpose of determining the practicability of the laying of a telegraphic cable between those points.”

Sen. Eugene Hale of Maine, who was instrumental in getting the law passed, noted the many cables that countries throughout the world had laid, including the one constructed in 1858. His concern was about crossing “the great space of ocean water lying between the two hemispheres, and forming that immense, mighty, and majestic sea known as the Northern Pacific Ocean.”

On Sept. 10, 1891, Lt. Cmdr. Zera Luther Tanner commanded USS Albatross, the U.S. Navy’s first vessel built specifically for marine research, to conduct surveys of the ocean floor to locate a practical path. The Navy had given him orders to find a path “as near as possible to San Francisco.” Tanner’s report, which he issued to Cmdr. Richardson Clover, chief hydrographer of the Navy Department, provided four practical paths, but only one connected to San Francisco. Two connected near Santa Barbara and the fourth connected at Point Conception.

Eastern Telegraph Company network in 1901. Dotted lines across the Pacific indicate planned cables laid in 1902–03. Public Domain

Over the next decade, the surveys were as far as the federal government ventured. Much transpired over those intervening years that substantially impacted the transpacific cable.

New Places to Connect

The year 1898 was transformative, as America annexed Hawaii in July, and fought the Spanish in the Spanish-American War from April to December. By the end of the year, America had obtained Puerto Rico, Hawaii [Cuba], Guam, and the Philippines. Furthermore, according to Capt. George Squier, of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, the Spanish-American war “demonstrated the dominating influence of submarine cable communications in the conduct of a naval war.” He further recommended establishing communications linkage to the three new territories in the Pacific.

In April 1899, the USS Nero launched from San Francisco and steamed across the Pacific to conduct a more extensive survey than those by Tanner. The survey lasted until February 1900 and extended past Hawaii to Guam and into the Philippines and finally Japan.

It was, according to Lt. John Hood, “the most complete and extensive deep-sea cable survey ever made,” but more importantly it “settled forever in the affirmative … the practicability of a complete trans-Pacific cable.”

A Grand Offer

While Congress squabbled over the next steps, John W. Mackay, the poor Irish immigrant who had become a wealthy industrialist, jumped at the opportunity to take the lead on the venture. On Aug. 22, 1901, he wrote to Secretary of State John Hay:

“I beg leave to state I wish to lay and operate a submarine cable or cables from California to the Philippine Islands by way of the Hawaiian Islands, by means of an American corporation to be organized hereafter. … If the conditions should be substantially the same as those upon which the United States Atlantic cables were landed … I would arrange immediately for the manufacture and undertake to have the first section between California and the Hawaiian Islands completed by September, 1902.”

John W. Mackay, founder of the Commercial Cable Company. Public Domain

Commercial Pacific Cable Company President Clarence Mackay sent a telegram to President Theodore Roosevelt that the cable had reached Hawaii. Public Domain

The offer was accepted, though it would be another year before the government could coordinate the venture and the U.S. Navy would part with its soundings. The (CPCC) was founded a month after Mackay sent his letter. The company was a joint venture between three businesses, which included the British Eastern Telegraph Company. The British company was the majority shareholder at 50 percent, while the Great Northern Telegraph Company and Mackay’s Commercial Cable Company were both 25 percent shareholders. Regardless, it was an American company, as it was incorporated in the U.S.

Anticipating History

The company selected the British telegraph ship Silvertown, to carry the cable and draw it out across the ocean floor. Silvertown belonged to the India Rubber, Gutta Percha, and Telegraph Works Company and had been used throughout the globe for such cable-laying tasks. The ship left Portland, England on Sept. 23, 1902, sailed approximately 14,000 nautical miles to reach San Francisco (the Panama Canal had not yet been built), and arrived on Dec. 4.

CS Hooper, the world's first purpose-built cable-laying ship, renamed CS Silvertown in 1881. Public Domain

Dignitaries began assembling in San Francisco. The wealthy patronized the Cliff House. Refreshment tents were erected on the beach. By now, the salty sea air was filled with anticipation as people prepared for the historic ceremony. Another steamer, Newsboy, arrived to partake in the early-goings of the cable-laying. This ship held six miles of cable that would extend from the beach. CPCC employees hauled 17 large buoys onto the beach, which would be used to hold the cable afloat so that it could be easily hauled aboard the Silvertown and spliced to its cable.

The Company had acquired enough cable to “cover a stretch of about 2276 nautical miles.” Ten days had passed since the Silvertown had arrived, and now the ships, employees, captains, dignitaries, and the ceremony were ready.

“To the memory of John W. Mackay—I christen thee ‘Pacific Cable.’ Good luck to you. May you carry only messages of happiness.” It was during this week in history, on Dec. 14, 1902, that Lucille Gage, the 11-year-old daughter of California governor, Henry Gage, inaugurated what the New York Times reported as “a new era in the commercial development of the Pacific Coast.”

When the cable was safely brought to shore to connect it to the San Francisco side, CPCC President Clarence Mackay, the son of the deceased John Mackay, who had died on July 20, 1902, sent President Theodore Roosevelt a telegram: “I have the honor to inform you that the end of the Honolulu cable was successfully brought to shore this morning.”

Connecting Hawaii

The Newsboy steamed five miles from shore, lowering the cable-attached buoys along the way. That night, workers aboard Silvertown spliced the cables and began the long voyage to Honolulu. For 12 days, cruising at a speed of 7 knots, the Silvertown dropped thousands of miles of cable along the Pacific Ocean floor. According to one newspaper report, “Rough and boisterous was the treatment bestowed upon the great ship which, as its precious load was laid upon, the floor of the ocean, became more and more the toy of the wildest waves which have been seen along the track of the steamships between San Francisco and Honolulu for many years.”

The cable was placed just off the shore of Oahu on Dec. 26, and was finally connected to Honolulu on Jan. 1, 1903. After the cables were laid in Hawaii, they were followed by connecting cables to Midway, then Guam, and then the Philippines. The transpacific cable, a product of American ingenuity and determination, officially connected the entire globe by way of telegraph.

The first message sent via the transpacific cable was on July 4, 1903, and was supposedly a greeting to William Howard Taft, the governor of the Philippines, and “the people of the Philippines” from President Theodore Roosevelt.

There is some debate that the first message was actually from President Roosevelt to Clarence Mackay, who was standing beside the president at the time. According to “Telephony: The American Telephone Journal,” Roosevelt’s operator sent the message at 11:23 p.m. and Mackay received it 12 minutes later. The message read: “Congratulations and success to the Pacific cable, which the genius of your lamented father and your own enterprise made possible. Theodore Roosevelt.”

The message was not only have been the first official message sent via the transpacific cable. It was also the first telegraph message sent that circumnavigated the globe.

Never miss a This Week in History story! Sign up for the American History newsletter here.

What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to [email protected]