It was a failure at first, and went by the name of "Vail's Folly." But Engineer Carty, by a happy thought, DOUBLED THE WIRE, and thus in a moment established two new factors in the telephone business--the Metallic Circuit and the Long Distance line.
At once the Bell Company came over to Vail's point of view, bought his new line, and launched out upon what seemed to be the foolhardy enterprise of stringing a double wire from Boston to New York.

This was to be not only the longest of all telephone lines, strung on ten thousand poles; it was to be a line de luxe, built of glistening red copper, not iron.

Its cost was to be seventy thousand dollars, which was an enormous sum in those hardscrabble days.

There was much opposition to such extravagance, and much ridicule.

"I would n't take that line as a gift," said one of the Bell Company's officials.
But when the last coil of wire was stretched into place, and the first "Hello" leaped from Boston to New York, the new line was a victorious success.