There were optical telegraphs before electrical: <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_telegraph" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_telegraph</a><p>"The Early History of Data Networks" is a good read on the topic: <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Early_History_of_Data_Networks.html?id=IvlSAAAAMAAJ" rel="nofollow">https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Early_History_of_Da...</a>
I saw a picture of a stretch of road in the west and started thinking about the 1800's and the striking contrast between the wild and the technological American landscape. It turns out Google has an interesting site, linked.