What is Australian Overland Telegraph Line?
[[File:The Ghan route map.png|right|thumb|300px|The [[Adelaide-Darwin railway]] follows the route of the Telegraph Line, using the easternmost (yellow) path. The railway reached Alice Springs on 6 August 1929, and Darwin in 2003.]] [[File:Tennant-creek0106.jpg|thumb|300px|[[Tennant Creek, Northern Territory|Tennant Creek]] repeater station]] The '''Australian Overland Telegraph Line''' was a 3200&nbsp;km [[telegraphy|telegraph]] line that joined [[Darwin, Northern Territory|Darwin]] with [[Port Augusta, South Australia|Port Augusta]] in [[South Australia]]. Completed in 1872 the Overland Telegraph Line allowed fast communication between [[Australia]] and the rest of the world. It was one of the great [[engineering]] feats of 19th century Australia.<ref>[http://nationaltreasures.nla.gov.au/index/Treasures/item/nla.int-ex8-s24 W.A. Crowder’s diary: the Overland Telegraph Line] National Library of Australia.</ref> It followed the route discovered by the explorer [[John McDouall Stuart]] in 1862. It was probably the most important milestone in Australia's telegraphic history.<ref>{{cite book | author=Wendy Lewis, Simon Balderstone and John Bowan | title=Events That Shaped Australia | page=66 | publisher=New Holland | year=2006 | isbn=9781741104929 }}</ref> Because of the limits of technology, the telegraph messages could only travel about 300 km along the line.<ref name=foms>{{cite web |url=http://www.gabcc.org.au/tools/getFile.aspx?tbl=tblContentItem&id=232 |title=The Peake Overland Telegraph Repeater Station |access-date=16 June 2011 |format=PDF |work=Friends of Mound Springs Newsletter, 7 July 2008 |archive-date=22 February 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110222210141/http://www.gabcc.org.au/tools/getFile.aspx?tbl=tblContentItem&id=232 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Repeater stations were built at regular intervals so that the messages could be resent. Some of the stations became the start of cities such as [[Alice Springs, Northern Territory|Alice Springs]] or [[Tennant Creek, Northern Territory|Tenn