[Trade Journal]
Publication: The Electrical Engineer
New York, NY, United States
vol. 10, no. 115, p. 74, col. 1,2
TRADE NOTES AND NOVELTIES
AND MECHANICAL DEPARTMENT.
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DESTRUCTION OF INSULATORS AND WIRES BY COWBOYS.
Every telegraph wire on the Union Pacific Railway near Sydney, Neb., was interrupted on July 10, and all communication with the West and Pacific coast by this, the main route of the Western Union Telegraph Company, was completely severed from daylight until late in the afternoon.
A lot of cowboys who had been working on a round-up near Sydney visited that town at night, and, when they had exhausted all the pleasures of the metropolis of Cheyenne county, at daylight they mounted their ponies and proceeded a few miles west of the town, where they set up a target against a telegraph pole. They spent some time in hitting it from various distances, but, the mark proving too easy for their skill, they turned their attention to the insulators and wires, and only desisted when they had knocked off all the insulators and cut every wire with their bullets. The Western Union Telegraph Company sent repairers to the scene, but it took them all day to repair the damage.
