The World's First Long-Distance Telephone Line

The line was strung to move water, not conversation. Its owner was a mining and water company, its two ends were the two ends of a ditch system, and what travelled the wire was instruction about how much water to send down which flume to which hydraulic pit. Fifty-eight miles of it, in 1877, through country with no roads worth the name. The plaque claims a world record, and the claim is contested; what is not contested is why anyone bothered to build it.

What the plaque says

Commemorating the first long distance telephone in the world. Built in 1877, by the Ridge Telephone Co, it connected French Corral with French Lake 58 miles away. It was operated by the Milton Mining Co from this building which was built about 1853.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Nevada City — 8.3 mi
  Gaslamps, brick storefronts, and the Nisenan who are still fighting to be recognized on their own ground.
• Empire Mine State Historic Park — 9.5 mi
  The oldest, deepest, richest hard-rock gold mine in California, with 367 miles of flooded tunnels underneath.
• Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park — 14 mi
  A canyon washed out of a mountain by water cannon, and the lawsuit that ended hydraulic mining.

More markers nearby

• Bridgeport Historic District — 2.0 mi
• The Little Town of Rough and Ready — 5.5 mi
• Holbrooke Hotel — 8.0 mi
• Site of One of the First Discoveries of Quartz Gold in California — 8.1 mi