telegram-since Western Union stopped this business in January of this year, who still provides this service?

Answer 1

http://www.americantelegram.com/postaltelegrams.htm

http://www.sendtelegram.com/st/

I am sure that email lead to the destruction of this service....below is the answer for those that are going to say something stupid like why?

For decades, messages of joy, sorrow, and success came in signature yellow envelopes delivered by hand by a courier. Now after 154 years, the Western Union telegram is officially a thing of the past.

The company formed in April 1856 to commercially exploit the hot technology of the telegraph to send cross-country messages in less than a day, is now focusing its attention on money transfers and other financial services and quietly ended its telegram service on Friday.

"The decision was a hard decision because we're fully aware of our heritage," Victor Chayet, a spokesman for the Greenwood Village-based company said Wednesday. "But it's the final transition from a communications company to a financial services company."

Several telegraph companies that eventually combined to become Western Union were founded in 1851, and combined five years later to form the company, which built its first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861.

"At the time it was as incredible and astonishing as the computer when it first came out," said historian Tom Noel. "For people who could barely understand it, here you had the magic of the electric force traveling by wire across the country."

The company later became Western Union Financial Services, which was acquired by First Financial Management Corp. in 1994 which then merged with First Data Corp. in a $7 billion merger the next year.

The end of the era was first reported by bloggers on the Internet.

"There is a bit of sweet irony to that," Chayet said.

Telegrams had reached their peak in the 1920s and 1930s when it was cheaper to send a telegram than to place a long distance phone call. People would save money by using the word "stop" instead of periods to end sentences because punctuation was extra, while the four character word was free, Chayet said.

Telegrams were used to announce such momentous events as the death of President Lincoln, the first successful flight in 1903 and the country's entry into World War I. During World War II, the sight of a Western Union courier was feared as the War Department, the precursor to the Department of Defense, used the service to notify families of the death of their loved ones serving overseas, Chayet said.

With long distances rates dropping and different technologies for communicating evolving -- including the Internet -- Western Union phased out couriers in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

By last year, only 20,000 telegrams were sent at about $10 a message, mostly from companies using the service for official notification, Chayet said. The modern day telegram was delivered in a retro yellow envelope inside what looked like an overnight package, which it was in essence.

Last week, the last 10 telegrams included birthday wishes, condolences on the death of a loved one, notification of an emergency, and several people trying to be the last to send a telegram.

"Recent generations didn't receive telegrams and didn't know you could send them," Chayet said.

Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse Code, sent the first telegram from Washington to Baltimore on May 26, 1844, to his partner Alfred Vail to usher in the telegram era that displaced the Pony Express. It read "WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?"

"If he only knew," Chayet said of the myriad of choices today, which includes text message on cell phones, the Internet and cheap long distance phone rates.

"It definitely was an anachronism," Noel said. "It's amazing it survived this long."

Answer 2

Sad, but true, that Western Union decided to abandon their long-time telegram serice division earlier this year. Please see the sites listed below for companies that still provide this service. Hope it's good news that you plan to send!

Answer 3

my friend,telegram no i live in England,the band not to bad, bikinis red hot, and a song,1 Called,Telegram Sam,by,Mark Bolan and T Rex, they were an English band,Mark Bolan,died in a car crash, so take care my friend.

Answer 4

they did? y?