Coast to Coast Telegrams

Back in the early days of the telegraph, when sending a telegram from New York to San Francisco what process had to be followed for it to reach its destination from the original sender to its final destination?

Like a post office letter, in addition to your message you specify who the message is from, who it is intended for, and where they are located. Your telegraph station would send it to the next nearest station, who would forward the message on until it got to the destination telegraph station. Your California to New York message wouldn’t have been directly possible until 1861 when Western Union put a transcontinental line across the U.S. (they used telegraph to control their trains).