26. Fax Machines Are Actually as Old as the Oregon Trail
In 1843, the Oregon Trail was finally completed by an enterprising wagon train of about 1000 migrants. After a difficult trek, they cleared a final segment to make the trail passable by wagon all the way from the Missouri River to Oregon. Through the 1860s, the Oregon Trail was used by about 400,000 settlers, who loaded their hopes upon wagons and trekked west in pursuit of their dreams. The trail finally went into decline when the first transcontinental railway was completed in 1869, as trains made for a faster, cheaper, and safer journey. In 1843, when the trail was finally completed, a Scottish inventor named Alexander Bains secured a British patent for an “Electric Printing Telegraph”.
The invention relied on a clock to sync the movement of two pendulums to scan a message line by line. Using a metal pin arrangement in a cylinder, Bain devised a system of on-off electric pulses to scan the pins, send a message across wires, and reproduce it at a receiving station. It was the forerunner of the modern fax machine and led to the first commercially practical telefax service between Paris and Lyon in 1861 – 11 years before the telephone’s invention. So although it seems absurd at first blush, the fax machine is in fact as old as the Oregon Trail.
Related: Eye-Opening Details about Life on the Oregon Trail.