If you hear something On The Grapevine you have obtained information through gossip and rumour while remaining unaware of the true source. The telegraph was invented by William Morse in America. He first used it in a demonstration to Congress on 24 May 1844. There was so much enthusiasm for this new system of communication that companies all over the USA rushed to put up telegraph lines, often cutting corners. In 1859 a man called Colonel Bee put up a line between Virginia City, Nevada and Placerville, California and to save time and money decided to use trees instead of regular telegraph poles. However, the natural movement of trees soon stretched the line, leaving it tangled and resembling one of the wild grapevines in California. From that point, any general source of information was known in that area as “the grapevine” and the term soon spread throughout the land.