On Jan. 25 , 1915 , discoverer Alexander Graham Bell ( centerfield ) called up his former lab mate , Thomas Watson , in San Francisco , making the first transcontinental earphone call in history .
“ Mr. Watson , are you there ? ”
Watson answer in the affirmative as hundreds of meeter erupted in clapping , according to a 1915 edition ofThe New York Times :
He [ Bell ] heard a sound that at first he cogitate was due to some imperfectness in the transmission of the voice over the farseeing conducting wire , but in a moment he recognize that Mr. Watson had turned away from his telephone to tell the San Francisco audience what Dr. Bell had sound out , and that the interference he had heard had been the applause of the consultation , 3,400 miles away .
This transcontinental phone bank line was a dream several years in the making , started in 1908 by AT&T ’s president Theodore Vail . The end was to actually build the sound line in time to celebrate the windup of the Panama Canal . The last pole was instal in Wendover , Utah , in July of 1914 , butthe official first conversation was postponeduntil the Panama - Pacific exhibition in January the next year .
It would now take 16 days to go slide - to - coast by the canal , 90 hours by railway system , or 1/15th of a second by telephone — but it was a little pricey . fit in to CNET , a three - minute call from NY to SF would be about $ 20.70 in 1915 dollars — or about $ 400 . On a related to side note , I will never complain about my phone bill again .
Even though our communicating is now dominated with texting and email ratherthan sound calls , this achievement was big — and patently not one that will be blank out .
Image via AT&T Archives and History Center
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