In 1900, Congress allocated funds to link Alaska's army posts by military telegraph and cable lines. The Secretary of War set up the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS) under the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The original group numbered about 100 men but grew to more than 2,000 by World War II, linking military posts in the Aleutians to Adak, Kodiak, and Anchorage. Gen. Adolphus Greely was designated Chief Signal Officer. Lt. Billy Mitchell mapped a route over 2,000 miles along the coast at Valdez and west from Tanana and Yukon to Nome. By 1903, six telegraph circuits included 559 miles of line between Fort Gibbon (Tanana) and Fort Egbert (Eagle City). Headquarters at Fort St. Michael also began telegraph communication at this time over 2,500 miles to the United States.

In 1936, WAMCATS was changed to the Alaska Communication System (ACS). ACS constructed 2,020 miles of lines composed of 72,000 poles along the Alaska-Canadian Highway (Alcan). By the 1950s there were 33 combination military-commercial stations and 7 branch offices in Alaska. The main station was located in Seattle, Washington. In 1962 the Air Force took over the ACS. [Portions taken from PCA 64, U. S. Alaska Communications System, 1904-1963.]