Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway
From: gmw1@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Speaking of Western Union
Message-ID: <telecom-v09i0387m04@vector.dallas.tx.us>
Date: 19 Sep 89 01:47:06 GMT
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X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 387, message 4 of 7

While we're on the subject of Western Union, here are a few questions about
WU that I've had for quite a while.

	1. When did WU take the manual telegraph out of operation and
	   replace it with the teletypewriter?  I've always been fond of
	   the telegraph myself.  I have an 1884 Western Union private
	   line telegraph transmitter/receiver set among my collection
	   of antique telephones.

	2. It was mentioned that WU used telco lines.  I was always led to
	   believe that WU had their own lines.  When did this practice
	   end?  Or did it?

	3. Do telegrams and mailgrams have any modern commercial application
	   with the advent of electronic mail, the overnight letter, fax,
	   etc.?  I have nothing against telegrams, and it would be a pity
	   for such a thing to ever die out, but are they still used in major
	   ways today? (other than the traditional sending of a telegram to
	   a wedding when you're away)

	4. Am I right to assume that the "public telegraph office" has
	   more or less been replaced with the 800 Western Union phone
	   number?  When did this come to be?

	5. What exactly is WU up to these days?  I'm sure they're getting
	   into long distance telephone like everyone else.  Can anyone
	   fill me in?

Speaking of Western Union, you all might enjoy the quotation that I have
in my signature.

Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ.      "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings
gmw1@cunxid.cc.columbia.edu        to be seriously considered as a means of
gmw1@cunixc (bitnet)               communication. The device is inherently of
72355.1226@compuserve.com          no value to us."
WUI:650-117-9118          	       - Western Union internal memo, 1877

[Moderator's Note: Regards your point (2) above, they had (still have) both,
depending. Sometimes they even had wire pairs within a telco cable that
were 'their' pairs and not telco's for use. It was a hodge podge of things.
Western Union always had a very special status with the Bell System, and
that included the rates given to WU for their phone service. Their lines
always shared the same conduits inside buildings with Bell, even prior to
the court ruling which said Bell had no right to make other folks vacate
the conduit when they (Bell) caught them in there. Oddly enough, it was
because they were allowing WU to use their conduits at will that the court
said they could jolly well allow all sorts of commuications services in
there. Likewise with house pairs; WU always took what they wanted.

Regards your point (4), the public offices were pretty much phased out during
the 1970's in favor of the 800 number. Then they began realizing there was
money to be made in the business of money transfer, so they began cutting
deals with banks and currency exchanges to function as Western Union agencies
for the purpose of taking in/disbursing funds transferred around the country.
But the currency exchange/agencies of today do NOT resemble the fabulous
old public offices of a quarter century ago. In smaller towns, they sometimes
worked through a telegraph agency rather than have their own office.  That
is, someone else owned the business and got a commission for handling traffic
for WU. In small towns, the agent could never make a living from WU alone,
so he did other things also. In Coffeyville, Kansas, and Hammond, Indiana,
to name just two towns, circa 1940-45, the telegraph agency was in the bus
depot; the agent sold Greyhound tickets (as well as the tickets for every
other bus line which came through town) and operated the telegraph machines
as well. The guy in Hammond had enough going on to keep a girl busy working
the counter two shifts a day and a guy who was there all night. The telegraph
machines (usually two or three of them) would chatter constantly in the
background, and the phone was ringing constantly, 24 hours a day.

Regards point (5), they now have a long distance service; they have public
e-mail (EasyLink); they still 'do' telegrams; money transfer and sundry. PT]