THE PIONEER OF FRONTIER TELEGRAPHY.
It is thirteen years since Edward Creighton, the pioneer of frontier
telegraphy, died, and that he is so well and honorably remembered in the
Omaha of to-day--aye, his memory respected by the thousands who have
gone there since he was no more--but illustrates how great was his
service to the community, how broad and enduring a mark he made upon his
time. No man did so much to sustain Omaha in its early and trying days
as Edward Creighton. His career was a notable one in its humble
beginning and splendid triumph in the flush of manhood. He was born in
Belmont County, Ohio, August 31, 1820, of Irish parentage. His early
days were passed upon a farm, but at the age of twenty he took the
contract for building part of the national stage road from Wheeling, W.
Va., to Springfield, Ohio. He continued in the contracting business, but
it was not until 1847 that he entered upon that branch of it in which he
achieved his greatest success and laid the foundation of his after
fortunes. In that year he received the contract for and constructed a
telegraph line between Springfield and Cincinnati. To this business he
devoted his time and energies for five years, being successfully engaged
in the construction of telegraph lines in all parts of the country,
completing the line from Cleveland to Chicago in 1852. In 1856, while
engaged in telegraph construction in Missouri, Mr. Creighton visited
Omaha, and his brothers, John A., James, and Joseph, and his cousin
James, locating there, he returned to Ohio, where he wedded Mary
Lucretia Wareham of Dayton, and in 1857 he also went to Omaha and
located. He continued in the telegraph construction business,
completing, in 1860, the first line which gave Omaha connection with the
outer world via St. Louis.
For years Mr. Creighton entertained a pet project--the building of a
line to the Pacific Coast--and in the winter of 1860, after many
conferences with the wealthy stockholders of the Western Union Company,
a preliminary survey was agreed upon. In those days the stage-coach was
the only means of overland travel, and that was beset with great danger
from Indians and road agents. In the stage-coach Mr. Creighton made his
way to Salt Lake City, where he enlisted the interest and support of
Brigham Young, the great head of the Mormon church, in his project. It
had been arranged to associate the California State Telegraph Company in
the enterprise, and on to Sacramento, in midwinter, Mr. Creighton
pressed on horseback. It was a terrible journey, but the man who made it
was of stout heart, and he braved the rigors of the mountains and
accomplished his mission, and in the spring of 1861 he returned to Omaha
to begin his great work. Congress, meanwhile, had granted a subsidy of
$40,000 a year for ten years to the company which should build the line.
Then a great race was inaugurated, for heavy wagers, between Mr.
Creighton's construction force and the California contractors who were
building eastward, to see which should reach Salt Lake City first. Mr.
Creighton had 1,100 miles to construct and the Californians only 450,
but he reached Salt Lake City on the 17th of October, one week ahead of
his competitors.
On October 24th, but little more than six months after the enterprise
was begun, Mr. Creighton had established telegraphic communication from
ocean to ocean. He had taken $100,000 worth of the stock of the new
enterprise at about eighteen cents on the dollar, and when the project
was completed the company trebled its stock, Mr. Creighton's $100,000
becoming $300,000. The stock rose to 85 cents, and he sold out $100,000
worth for $850,000, still retaining $200,000 of the stock. He continued
in the telegraphic construction business until 1867, when his great
cattle interests, in which he had embarked in 1864, and his great plains
freighting business, established before the building of the Union
Pacific and continued even after its completion, to the mining regions
of Montana and Idaho, exacted his attention. During all these years of
great business success, Mr. Creighton was firm in his allegiance to
Omaha. He was the first president of the first national bank in the
city, and was ever ready to aid, by his means, and counsel, and
enterprise, the furthering of Omaha's interests. He commanded the
confidence of all the people, his sterling integrity and unwavering
fidelity combining with his generous and charitable nature to make him a
very lovable man. No man has an unkind word to say of Edward Creighton,
and his memory is revered to this day as an upright, just, and kind man,
who, out of his own sterling qualities, had wrought a successful and
honorable career. He was stricken with paralysis and died November 5,
1874. To his memory Creighton College was erected and endowed by his
widow, in response to his own wish, expressed during his lifetime, to
found a free institution for the non-sectarian education of youth--the
institution to be under Catholic control.