Sep 21, 2016 1 min read

Building a wall along the U.S. border to keep out foreigners, as Donald Trump proposed, is hardly an original idea. In fact, the proposal goes back at least 112 years, although the location of that obstacle and the people it intended to keep out were different.

Following is an article published in the Washington Observer Jan. 7, 1904:

“Representative Dixon, of Montana, presented a bill today which embodies a novel idea with regard to international boundaries. It provides for the construction of a wire fence along the boundary between the United States and the Dominion of Canada, from the Lake of the Woods to Point Roberts, for the purpose of preventing the smuggling of undesirable immigrants, Chinese especially, across the frontier into this country. It is suggested that this fence be equipped with telegraphs, telephones and other electrical appliances to warn the proper officers when persons attempt to cross the border. The idea is, to say the least, unique, but it is hardly possible for a country with so vast a frontier as has the United States to put up a sort of burglar alarm system to keep out undesirable visitors.”