Commercial Pacific Cable Company was founded in 1901, and ceased operations in October, 1951. It provided the first direct telegraph route from America to the Philippines, China, and Japan.
The company was established as a joint venture of three companies: the
Commercial Cable CompanyThe Commercial Cable Company was founded in the United States in 1884 by John William Mackay and James Gordon Bennett, Jr. Their motivation was to break the then virtual monopoly of Jay Gould on transatlantic telegraphy and bring down prices .The technology was well established by this time, and...
(25%), the
Great Northern Telegraph CompanyThe Great Northern Telegraph Company was a Danish telegraph company founded in June 1869...
(25%), and the Eastern Telegraph Company (50%). Though the Eastern (a British firm) was the majority shareholder, the CPCC was registered in the United States.
The company used cable ships to lay its undersea cable across the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
from America's west coast. The cables extended a length of 6,912 miles and the project cost approximately $12 million. Before this, messages had to travel across the Atlantic to the
Far EastThe Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
via
Cape TownCape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
and the
Indian OceanThe Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
, or via
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to
RussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, then across the Russian landline to
VladivostokThe city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...
, then by submarine cable to
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and the
PhilippinesThe Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
.
The first section of cable was laid in 1902 by the cableship Silvertown from
Ocean Beach- Places :Australia* Ocean Beach * Ocean Beach New Zealand* Ocean Beach, Hawke's Bay* Ocean Beach, OtagoUnited States* Ocean Beach, San Diego, California, also community* Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California...
, adjacent to the famous
Cliff HouseThe Cliff House is a restaurant perched on the headlands on the cliffs just north of Ocean Beach on the western side of San Francisco, California...
in San Francisco to Honolulu. It began operating on January 1, 1903. Later that year, cables were laid from Honolulu to
MidwayMidway Atoll is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean, near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago, about one-third of the way between Honolulu, Hawaii, and Tokyo, Japan. Unique among the Hawaiian islands, Midway observes UTC-11 , eleven hours behind Coordinated Universal Time and one hour...
, then from Midway to
GuamGuam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
, and then from Guam to
ManilaManila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
. The cables carried the first message to ever travel around the globe from U.S. President
Theodore RooseveltTheodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
on July 4, 1903. He wished "a happy Independence Day to the U.S., its territories and properties . . ." It took nine minutes for the message to travel worldwide.
In 1906
Siemens AGSiemens AG is a German multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Munich, Germany. It is the largest Europe-based electronics and electrical engineering company....
made and laid the section from Guam to Borin Island in the Japanese
archipelagoAn archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...
. That company also connected
ManilaManila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
to
ShanghaiShanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
by
SilvertownSilvertown is an industrialised district on the north bank of the Thames in the London Borough of Newham. It was named after Samuel Winkworth Silver's former rubber factory which opened in 1852, and is now dominated by the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery and the John Knight ABP animal rendering...
.
During World War I the transpacific service slowed significantly from repeated faults and the general increase in war-related traffic. Despite repeated requests by U.S. businesses and the federal government, the company would not invest in improvements to increase traffic volume or speed. After the war conditions eased, but demand continued to be high and the company made repeated promises to invest in a second cable, but never did so. When World War Two broke out, the cable connection from Midway to the Philippines closed quickly after 7 December 1941, and did not reopen until the war was over.
By 1946, the cables were developing serious faults. Over one million dollars was spent on repairs, but the company was unable to maintain a viable service and stopped operating in 1951. It merged with American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T).
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