The B. F. Hastings Building has been restored along with many other dilapidated and abandoned structures left over from the Gold Rush boom years. The original town along the banks of the Sacramento River is now a State Historic Park, having undergone a reconstruction of the building exteriors to reflect those golden years long past, and the interiors converted into shops, pubs, restaurants and museums. 

The B. F. Hastings Building was the location of an office of the Alta Telegraph Company in 1858 and was later taken over by the California State Telegraph Company. The first official message to be "wired" across country over the first transcontinental telegraph line was sent by the Chief Justice of California to President Lincoln from the California State Telegraph office on October 24, 1861. The B. F. Hastings Building is therefore quite an appropriate site for a communications museum, and this is a museum that would surely interest the insulator collector--beginner or old hand. 

As this museum was an original idea and project of insulator collectors with special interests in telegraph history research, it is no surprise that the emphasis would be on the modes of insulation used. From California's earliest lines are two styles of "vulcanite" threadless "hats" made under the authority of Goodyear's 1851 patent for hard india-rubber or "vulcanite", and a sulphur filled iron insulator patented in 1851 by J. M. Batchelder. These insulators rate among the rarest examples of early attempts at insulation of the telegraph wire. 

There is a Farmer-Batchelder 1858 patent iron hook which was embedded in "vulcanite" and screwed into a wood block, and a beautiful wood shielded Wade displayed on a wire stand leaning slightly backwards, with a small mirror lying flat underneath so the glass insert can readily be seen.

After the Wade we come to a threadless U.S. Tel. Co. insulator and the story of the ill-fated opposition line. On we go to early threaded insulators: EC&M Co S.F., Brookfields and Cal. Elec. Works. Along with all the insulators are displayed the construction methods of the early lines, such as: poles, crossarms, brackets, pins, wire, wire ties and splices.

I won't try to describe everything I saw, least of all the Seiler Telephone. You will have to see the museum yourselves. Everything about the museum is professionally well done. The display cases and methods of display show a touch of genius. The historical information backing up displays is expertly researched and accurate. So much is packed into this small museum, that after looking at the photographs taken, I realized I had missed a few things.

Plan to spend some time in the in B. F. Hastings Building in Old Sacramento, California, this summer. The museum is next door to Wells Fargo and will be open from 10 to 5 Monday through Saturday during the summer.