A telegraph line intended to connect New York with London by way of the Bering Strait Cable and a line across Russia was partially built northward through this point toward the wilderness areas of British Columbia and Alaska in 1865-1867. A single-wire pole line followed a fifty-foot clearing through heavy forests and across frozen tundra. The Western Union Telegraph Company abruptly abandoned the project in 1867 when satisfactory trans-Atlantic cable service was established. Russian-American cooperation in building the line facilitated the purchase of Alaska in 1867.