Twenty to the Mile The Overland Telegraph Line by Derek Pugh

Twenty to the Mile: Australia’s Epic Telegraph Line

The tyranny of distance was the greatest engineering problem facing Australia. The solution? The electric telegraph, championed by South Australia. Charles Todd, leading hundreds of men, constructed a telegraph line across the continent from Port Augusta to Port Darwin in just two years.

At nearly 3,000 kilometres long, with 36,000 poles at ’20 to the mile’, it was a mammoth undertaking. Finally, in October 1872, Adelaide was linked to London. The Overland Telegraph Line traversed Aboriginal lands first seen by John McDouall Stuart a decade prior. Messages that once took weeks to cross the country now took mere hours.

Passing through eleven new repeater stations, built in Australia’s remotest regions, the line joined the vast global telegraph network, ushering in a new era. Each station, staffed by six, became a centre of white civilization and the cattle or sheep industry, displacing the Aborigines. The stories of those who lived and died on the line—heroic, desperate, and tragic—remain an indelible part of Australia’s history.