October 24 in business history: a dollar a word, a 50-cent crossing, and a day nobody had priced
Three 24 Octobers — the first transcontinental telegraph in 1861, the George Washington Bridge in 1931, and Iceland's day without women's work in 1975 — each turned on what one unit of a thing was worth, and who paid when that number changed.
Three 24 Octobers, and the same question in each one: what is a single unit of this thing actually worth?
In 1861 a letter across America cost a dollar per half-ounce, carried by riders on horseback. In 1931 a river crossing cost fifty cents a car. By 1975 nobody had ever put a price on a day of women's work.
Each of those numbers sat outside the accounts until somebody changed it, and the businesses built on the old number had to find a new plan.
The route they didn't own
Western Union completed a telegraph line from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento on 24 October 1861. It joined the eastern network to California's, and the two coasts could talk in minutes. 1
Construction crews raised their first pole on 4 July 1861. They planted 27,500 poles and strung 2,000 miles of single-strand iron wire, and the system cost about $500,000. 2
The eastern crew reached Salt Lake City on 18 October. The western crew closed the last gap on the 24th, and the first messages went to President Lincoln that evening. 1
Horace Carpentier, president of the Overland Telegraph Company, sent one of them: "I announce to you that the telegraph to California has this day been completed. May it be a bond of perpetuity between the states of the Atlantic and those of the Pacific." 1
The price of a message changed with the wire. The Pony Express had charged $5 per half-ounce at its 1860 launch, then $2.50, then $1 by July 1861, against a normal letter rate of two cents. 3
The wire opened at $1 a word in its first week. The Telegraph Act of 1860 had specified 30 cents. 2
At every one of those prices the Pony Express lost money. It ran for eighteen months with 80 riders, 184 stations and 400 horses, chasing an exclusive government mail contract that never came. 34
Two days after the wire reached Salt Lake City, on 26 October 1861, the service closed. 3
Decision mirror: The mail business that outlived the wire belongs to the Postal Service now. In the year to 30 September 2025 it took $80.5 billion in revenue on 108.7 billion pieces, 3.3 per cent fewer pieces than the year before. The net loss was $9.0 billion. 5
Revenue for the quarter to 31 March 2026 rose 2.3 per cent to $20.2 billion, and the net loss was $1.95 billion. 6
From 10 April 2026 the service stopped paying its share of federal retirement contributions, holding on to about $200 million a pay period. It has also asked its regulator to lift the price cap on mail. 6
Postmaster General David Steiner put the position plainly: "It is a simple fact that we are in a cash crisis." 6
The money they didn't spend
The George Washington Bridge was dedicated on 24 October 1931, before 30,000 guests and an Army Air Corps flyover. The governors of New York and New Jersey both spoke. 7
Pedestrians walked the span that evening. The first cars crossed the next morning, eight months ahead of schedule. 7
The choice had been made years earlier, between two designs. Gustav Lindenthal proposed a bridge at 57th Street with twenty road lanes and twelve rail tracks, for at least $200 million. 8
Othmar Ammann proposed a car bridge on a $60 million budget. The Port Authority took his. 8
The authority set $60 million for land, demolition and construction, and the bridge came in $1 million under it. 9
The saving is still on the skyline. Cass Gilbert's plan to case the towers in granite and concrete was dropped to hold the number, which is why they stand as bare steel. 10
Ammann left the two centre lanes unpaved for a rail line no railroad agreed to run. Cars took them in 1946, for a third more capacity. 710
The lower deck, designed for four rapid-transit tracks, opened in 1962 carrying six road lanes. 10
Then came the toll, which is where a crossing stopped being a cost and became a business. Cars paid 50 cents each way and pedestrians 10 cents. 7
In the first 24 hours 56,312 cars and 33,540 pedestrians crossed, and the ten-lane toll plaza was widened to fourteen within a week. 7
The first year came in under its forecast: 5.5 million vehicles against the eight million expected, and nearly 500,000 pedestrians. By 1940 the bridge carried 9.1 million vehicles, and in 2025 more than 101 million, an average of 278,000 a day. 7
A car now pays $16.79 at peak with an E-ZPass, or $23.30 by mail. 11
Decision mirror: In January 2025 New York put a second charge on the same commute. Cars entering Manhattan below 60th Street pay $9 at peak, and $2.25 overnight. 12
In the first year 27 million fewer vehicles entered the zone, 11 per cent fewer, about 73,000 a day. The charge raised more than $550 million net against a $500 million target, and backs $15 billion of transit work. 12
The MTA put the net figure at $562 million after expenses. 13
The rate had been designed at $15 a car and cut to $9 in 2024, so the first year brought in less than the plan at $15 had assumed. 13
The work nobody had priced
On 24 October 1975 about 90 per cent of Icelandic women stopped working, paid and unpaid, for a day. 14
Roughly 25,000 of them gathered in Lækjartorg, the main square of Reykjavík, in a country of about 220,000 people. More than twenty rallies ran outside the capital. 15
Strikes outside the union and employer federations were illegal, so the organisers sold the day as a day off. The name kept it outside the strike law. 15
What stopped was easy to count. Nurseries, schools, big shops, theatres and fish-processing factories closed, fathers took their children to work, and shops sold out of easy sausages. 15
About 60 per cent of Icelandic women worked outside the home that year, and women held 5 per cent of the seats in parliament. 15
Iceland passed its first Gender Equality Act in 1976. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir became the first woman democratically elected head of state in 1980, and women now hold 46 per cent of the parliament's seats. 1415
Decision mirror: Europe has since moved the same measurement onto the balance sheet. Directive (EU) 2023/970 had to be written into national law by 7 June 2026. 1617
Employers must give applicants the pay or the pay range, in the advert or before the interview, and may not ask what they earned before. 16
Workers can ask in writing for their own pay, and for the average pay by sex for comparable work. The answer is due within two months, and employers must remind staff of the right every year. 16
Employers with 250 or more staff publish their gender pay gap every year from 7 June 2027. Those with 150 to 249 publish every three years from the same date, and those with 100 to 149 from 2031. 16
A gap of 5 per cent or more with no objective justification brings a joint pay assessment with worker representatives if it is not closed within six months. 16
Few member states met the deadline. Italy, Slovakia, Lithuania and Malta had rules in force on 7 June 2026. 17
1975 priced a day of work by stopping it. The directive prices it by requiring the number first.
Three questions for the day
- Which cost in your business is missing from your price because nobody has ever had to quote it?
- If a competitor owned the fixed asset your margin depends on, how long would your order book last their first price cut?
- When the budget forced a choice, which visible part of the design did you leave unfinished, and who is paying for that saving now?
References
- 1
- 2Wikipedia, "First transcontinental telegraph"
en.wikipedia.org
- 3Smithsonian National Postal Museum, "Moving the Mail: The Pony Express"
postalmuseum.si.edu
- 4Wikipedia, "Pony Express"
en.wikipedia.org
- 5
- 6
- 7Wikipedia, "George Washington Bridge"
en.wikipedia.org
- 8Smithsonian Magazine, "Othmar Ammann's Glory"
smithsonianmag.com
- 9
- 10ASCE Metropolitan Section, "George Washington Bridge"
ascemetsection.org
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16EUR-Lex, Directive (EU) 2023/970 on pay transparency
eur-lex.europa.eu
- 17
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