Posted on 02/01/2006 10:28:21 AM PST by Mr. Brightside
Era Ends: Western Union Stops Sending Telegrams
Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Managing Editor
LiveScience.com
Wed Feb 1, 10:00 AM ET
After 145 years, Western Union has quietly stopped sending telegrams.
On the company's web site, if you click on "Telegrams" in the left-side navigation bar, you're taken to a page that ends a technological era with about as little fanfare as possible:
"Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact a customer service representative."
The decline of telegram use goes back at least to the 1980s, when long-distance telephone service became cheap enough to offer a viable alternative in many if not most cases. Faxes didn't help. Email could be counted as the final nail in the coffin.
Western Union has not failed. It long ago refocused its main business to make money transfers for consumers and businesses. Revenues are now $3 billion annually. It's now called Western Union Financial Services, Inc. and is a subsidiary of First Data Corp.
The world's first telegram was sent on May 24, 1844 by inventor Samuel Morse. The message, "What hath God wrought," was transmitted from Washington to Baltimore. In a crude way, the telegraph was a precursor to the Internet in that it allowed rapid communication, for the first time, across great distances.
Western Union goes back to 1851 as the Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company. In 1856 it became the Western Union Telegraph Company after acquisition of competing telegraph systems. By 1861, during the Civil War, it had created a coast-to-coast network of lines.
Other company highlights:
1866: Introduced the first stock ticker. 1871: Introduced money transfers. 1884: Became one of the original 11 stocks tracked by the Dow Jones Average. 1914: Introduced the first consumer charge card. 1964: Began using a transcontinental microwave beam to replace land lines. 1974: Launched Westar I, the first U.S. dedicated communications satellite.
On Jan. 26, the last day you could send a telegram, First Data announced it would spin Western Union off as an independent, publicly traded company.
A little Republican history; John Hay who was Lincolns private secretary at the White House (one of two)... married the heiress to Western Union.
So much for loging on from Tijeras.....
See ya later...
Landshark!!!!
No. No. No. No. STOP It is STOP Bush's fault. STOP
Now we're just going to have to accept more illegal immigration so they can deliver the messages Americans just don't want to.
When Western Union came up with Easy Link in the 1980's, it was only a matter of time. I wondered then why anyone would even NEED telegrams, when they could send messages by computer. Email?
1974: Launched Westar I, the first U.S. dedicated communications satellite.
They contributed to the techonological changes. Didn't so much put themselves out of business as move to new ways of doing things.
Well the post office is trying to remain competitive with email and wanted to set up everyone in America with email accounts, offering to offer to hand deliver (with the day's mail) printouts of those emails.
This makes me sad and I don't know why.
I got a telegram once,the day I was married forty-five years ago.
The end of an era.
I did receive a telegram from my Dad in basic telling me how proud he was of me and that I was doing a great job. It was awesome to receive and I still have it 181/2 years later. However, I do understand that technology is advanced and now their are other methods to send information.
I wonder what the last telegram said..
WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT
Horay for Morse Code. The first binary form of communications.
They should make that their last OFFICIAL telegram message.......
Don't feel sorry for them. Western Union makes a huge profit from money transfers. Go into a convience store or super market that has a WU hook up and you may well likely see our illegal guest from the south sending home American Dollars.
LOL
Somewhere, I still have the stack of congratulatory telegrams sent to my parents' hotel room on the night of their wedding in 1963. They had a small wedding and lots of friends and relatives who were not included wanted to send their best wishes.
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