Era Ends: Western Union Stops Sending Telegrams

[PSPS]

Era Ends: Western Union Stops Sending Telegrams
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 31 January 2006
10:17 pm 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.

http://www.livescience.com/technology/060131_western_union.html

[GetTheRightVote]

1. It is always sad to hear an Era is ending even for the best of reasons.

:kick:

[rpannier]

2. I wish I had known about this before Jan 26

I'd have sent one just for the nostalgia of it.

[salin]

6. I had the same thought.

[ArtH]

3. Telegrams

     I was a Western Union delivery boy more than half a
century ago. It was fun work except when we delivered military
notifications of death, wounded or missing personnell. I hated
those. We, of course, never knew exactly what was in the
telegram, but we knew War Department telegrams were not happy
events.

[Vidar]

7. Welcome to DU

[Wilms]

4. Brief History

http://www.retro-gram.com/telegramhistory.html

[AmericanErrorist]

5. Just before the Alito filibuster, too

Peter B. Collins (normally known for filling in for Ed Schultz) was talking about sending telegrams to to "the Clueless Caucus", those who had not announced support for the Alito filibuster, and Senator Byrd , on the Young Turks' radio filibuster. It was I who had to call in the sad news. Fortunatly, I found American Telegram, who continues to ply at the telegram business to this day.

[Boojatta]

8. If you're doing some time travelling and you accidentally go back too far,

then you will still be able to use Western Union telegrams to send messages to people who didn't go back as far as you went.