XPost: sci.electronics.design, alt.lasers   
   From: siegman@stanford.edu   
      
   In article ,   
    John Larkin  wrote:   
      
   > Where do you live? We'll be in Truckee over Labor Day.   
   >   
      
   At Stanford; the joys of retirement let us spend all winter at   
   Carnelian Woods.   
      
   Reason for my query is that for centuries Donner Pass has been a major   
   route across the Sierras and into California for:   
      
      --Native American hunters and migrants;   
      --Explorers and emigrants on the California Trail (early 1840s)   
         (including the Donner party);   
      --Gold Rush fortune seekers in the later 1840s;   
      --First transcontinental railroad in the 1860s;   
      --First transcontinental highway in 1915-1925   
         (Lincoln Highway, later Hiway 40);   
      --First transcontinental phone call in (I forget);   
      --First transcontinental airline routes (and beacons) in the 1920s;   
      --First transcontinental microwave relay link;   
      --Interstate 80, built for the Winter Olympics (1960);   
      --First trans-Sierra petroleum pipelines (19??);   
      
   and today a major fiber optic route connecting the Eastern U.S. to   
   California and on across the Pacific (first transcontinental fiber   
   link? -- I'm not sure).   
      
   The broad outline of how this fiber route came out of the SP RR, then   
   Sprint, then Qwest, is generally known.  Just out of historical   
   curiosity, I'd like to know more about when and how it was built, just   
   where it runs, who operates it, and so on.  The DSHS people would be   
   interested also.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)