SVRy . Telegraph Dept.

Skip ~
Make no mistake about it, I ain't jack around the SV. I spent a weekend there and had to put up with Taylor ! That's all !
Really, ... I wrote to Taylor quite some time back and asked him about the old lines and equipment. He has given me tidbits of info as he found stuff. I made the trip just to finally get off my dead ass and do some digging myself. We confirmed 15 different types of insulators, some dating to the mid - late 1890's, and two date coded 1950. I have located good specimens of almost all the types we found for a display they can use with information on each kind.
We also spoke of offering these types for sale to maybe raise a little coin for the organization.
As for building a line along the ROW, boy would I love to! Taylor can set the poles in that lovely boulder field and I will gladly frame and string them. If the SV ever did use telegraph, early photographs and field evidence show they built their lines to non-railroad telephone standards. Coming along as late as 1890, it might very well be that they jumped right to phone and never used keys. This is entirely speculation, but some research would probably reveal all.
In the meantime, I am trying to get a stretch of time free to make another trip down.
El SV Wire Guy