The story begins with a fairly crazy idea — to build a telegraph to Europe by going from Seattle to Alaska, under the Bering Straits, and across Siberia. The Collins Overland Telegraph (also called the Russian-American telegraph project) was started in 1866, but abruptly abandoned when the first transatlantic cable was successfully laid. It would have ended there, except for the discovery of gold in the Yukon in 1898. With new and prosperous towns at Whitehorse and Dawson, and eventually in Alaska, too, there was once again a need for a telegraph to the north. The old idea was reborn as the Yukon Telegraph and completed. Telegraph Creek was the maintenance center at about the middle of the line.