Before the telegraph and the radio, the only way to get information from one place to another was by messenger, right? Wrong! But then, you knew that! Smoke signals, drums, signal flags—probably tens of different ways long in use. Most, though, had the disadvantage of signal points having to be relatively close to each other in order to see or hear.
But, what about light transmission? No, not optic cable—heliographs!
These ingenious devices sent Morse code, not by electricity via telegraph wires, but by
flashes of sunlight. With a telescope, messages sent from one mountain peak to another
could be read from long distances, and then be relayed to the next station. In 1886,
during the Geronimo campaign, a message was sent from Fort Cummings in New Mexico to
Tubac, Arizona, and back in some 4 hours—a round-trip distance approaching 500 miles.
In our Chihuahuan Desert, Fort Selden was responsible for a heliograph station across
the Rio Grande from it, on top of the Robledo Mountains. Just think, no wires to be
cut, no interception. Not bad!
Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum, University of Texas at El Paso.
Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.