05/01/2026
What do buffalo have to do with telegraph lines?
It’s easy to picture the plains and prairies covered in massive herds of buffalo and people living in tipis and travelling for the hunt, and it’s easy to picture historic towns filled with log and clapboard buildings with train stations and wires strung between telegraph poles linking one town to the next.
But it is less common to picture buffalo alongside those towns of wooden buildings and telegraph offices. This exact combination did in fact exist. And it didn’t always end well for the telegraph. Here is an example from Kansas:
“When telegraph poles were first placed across the plains, the buffalo were delighted [as they were useful for rubbing off their heavy winter coats], but the poles tended to give way when leaned on by 680-kg (1,500lb) animals. The telegraph companies, not amused at losing miles of line, countered by installing bradawls, sharp pointed spikes intended to discourage buffalo rubbing. It was a mistake, as reported in a Kansas newspaper:
“For the first time they came to scratch sure of a sensation in their thick hides that thrilled them from horn to tail. They would go fifteen miles to fine a bradawl. They fought huge battles around the poles containing them, and the victor would proudly climb the mountain heap of rump and hump of the fallen and scratch himself into bliss until the bradawl broke, or the pole came down. There has been no demand for bradawls from the Kansas region since the first invoice.”
So, did the bison damage telegraph poles around Victoria Settlement? Probably not. The telegraph arrived in 1886, by which time there were almost no bison left in the area.
(Original source of quote: Leavenworth, Kansas, Daily Commercial,March 1869, as quoted in Arthur, “The North American Plains Bison,” 283.
Image courtesy of Parks Canada (https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/ab/elkisland/nature/eep-sar)
