Quietly the End of an Era

[Wes Bischel]

Gee, I never got one and I never sent one - a telegram that is. I guess it's too late now - the last Western Union telegram was sent Friday.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT


Wes

[Jarrod Nelson]

-- . / . .. - .... . .-.

(me either)

[Mike Ramsey]

Always wondered what "Stop" meant when I saw someone in the
movies or TV dictating a telegram. Now I know!

[Bill Grumbine]

My grandfather was an operator for years, and had lots of great stories to tell about it. He also had a number of instruments, including one of the original ones that used paper tape to print out the message. My father has all that stuff right now.

One thing he had that always stuck in my mind was a picture of FDR giving a speech in Chicago back in the 30s. He was sitting at a row of benches with a lot of other operators telegraphing the speech to various news organizations, but brought his camera along and managed to find the time to take a picture. Here is a link if anyone is interested in reading about it:

http://www.faradic.net/~gsraven/inst...wueventset.htm

The picture in this article is not the one I mention. That one is not published anywhere that I know.

Here is another link (also on the above page) which is a story written by him, along with some of his artwork.

http://www.faradic.net/~gsraven/tele...rumbine_3.html

Bill

[Bill Antonacchio]

I worked for Western Union from 1960 thru 1971 in the headquarters building at 60 Hudson St. in New York City, in a variety of jobs starting in the labs as a tech, doing commercial corporate data circuit layout and military circuit layout (I would have to route a circuit from some large city out to the middle of nowhere in Nebraska, Montana, Idaho, etc... you can guess what those circuits were for) to a manager in the New York Area Manager's office.

During my time in the labs we worked on protypes of a variety of equipment that would be laughed at today. We built a display for the Pentagon that took the ticker tape message (on transparent tape) and passed it in front of a projector lense to "instantaneously" display the info coming in over the wire.

My boss at that time also oversaw the WU museum that had every type of Morse key, glass insulator, crossarm, and lots of different copper wire that we used on the old railroad rights of way for the telegraph.

When I got into the circuit layout section we used low speed for things like the Sears Christmas circuit that they used for orders during the Christmas season (300 baud) and then for the Air Force and NORAD circuits into Cheyenne Mountain Complex outside of Colorado Springs, CO we used the "High Speed" circuits (2400 and later 9600 baud rate).

The largest R&D that was done during this period wound up producing one of the earliest national microwave links in the nation (world?) for communications.

Back then Western Union had the monoply on data communications and old MaBell had the monoply on voice, but Western Union never took advantage of that head start when the FCC changed the rules and allowed competition.

I always have a special feeling when I see or hear any reference to the good old Western Union Telegraph Company.

Thanks for letting me reminisce.

Regards,
Bill Antonacchio

[Vaughn McMillan]

Bill, your grandfather's article and pictures are great. Thanks for linking to them. Most definitely a different era.

- Vaughn

[Jerry Clark]

I have an original telegram from 1896 where my Great Grandfather asked the parents for permission to marry their daughter. It is pretty worn but still readable. It was amazing that you could communicate miles away and almost instantly. They would be blown over with the technology today! In just a little over 100 years. How much more can they do in the future?

[Christopher Pine]

I never forget the part pf the movie "We were soldiers" and the Army would send Telegrams to the homes of the wives when there husband had been killded. Anyone know how acurate that part of the movie was?
Was discusting if it was true.

Chris

[Wes Bischel]

Wow, I'm always amazed at the experiences of people here - such a diverse group! Bill G., your grandfather's stories are great! I never really thought about things from the WU agent's perspective. Bill A., your reminiscences are very enlightening. My dad talks about the early years in television (TV director) with a similar awe and pride to have been a part of such undertakings.

Thanks for sharing, I know I've learned a lot.

Wes