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21 unusual facts about Western Union


1911 Kansas vs. Missouri football game

A Western Union telegraph wire was set up direct from Columbia, with information "broadcast" to Lawrence.

1933 Indianapolis 500

A helpful AP editor in Denver advised him that he would send the name of the winner via Western Union telegraph.

Anson Stager

Anson Stager (April 20, 1825 - March 26, 1885) was the co-founder of Western Union, the first president of Western Electric Manufacturing Company and Union Army general, where he was head of the Military Telegraph Department during the Civil War.

Department of Alaska

In 1865, Western Union decided to lay a telegraph line across Alaska to Bering Strait where it would connect with an Asian line.

Donald Pike

Pike dropped out of school and left home at age 14 to live in a boarding house while continuing to work as a farm laborer, then as a stock boy in a department store and, at one point, as a Western Union messenger boy.

Dubb Union

The original name of the group was Westurn Union, but was later changed to Dubb Union to avoid a lawsuit with banking company Western Union.

Harbour View F.C.

The club generates revenue through sponsorships, match tickets, and other businesses such as stadium bars and Western Union.

ING Vysya Bank

In 2003, Western Union, a leading global money transfer firm, tied up with ING Vysya for inbound money transfer services across India.

Jim Hendy

He took a position submitting statistics and other information to Western Union for various sporting events at Madison Square Garden.

Joel Broyhill

A messenger came to his office every 30 minutes to pick up the Western Union telegrams his office would fire off to government agencies on behalf of constituents.

K Callan

Born Katherine Borman in Dallas, Texas, Callan made her first TV appearance at the age of 20, playing a Western Union operator on an episode of Route 66 that happened to be shooting in Dallas.

Late betting

In this case they used the wire transmissions of Western Union before they were made public to find results of already run races.

Lou Carrol

After reading the article, Carrol went to a nearby Western Union office and sent a telegram to Nixon's office in Washington, D.C..

Pennsylvania v. New York

In this case, Western Union had issued money orders that were either never redeemed or erroneously underpaid (e.g. a money order for $500 paid as $300), and enough time had passed that the value of the money orders was considered unclaimed property.

Postage stamp booklet

Booklets of telegraph stamps are known to have been issued by the California State Telegraph Company in 1870, and by Western Union in 1871, and on 14 October 1884 an A.W. Cooke of Boston received Patent 306,674 from the United States Patent Office for the idea of putting postage stamps into booklets.

Soopafly

Prior to the release, the group and the labels were approached by the company Western Union, threatening legal action if the name was not changed.

Tales of Pirates

You can only obtain points by charging your account with real money via a number of payment methods such as Paypal, Google Checkout, Wallie Card, Amazon Checkout or Western Union.

The Col Ballroom

The event drew German-Americans from throughout the Midwest, and Western Union added extra German operators so as to get news of the festival out over the wires.

TrueMoneyGames

The real money games require a prior deposit, therefore several different methods have been introduced, such as credit card payments, Neteller, Moneybookers, Paysafecard, Western Union, ClickandBuy and bank transfers.

United States Senate Lobby Investigation Committee

The committee alleged that the nation's major utility companies were conspiring to defeat the bill, and ordered Western Union to turn over all telegrams sent on behalf of the company for the committee to investigate.

Western Union Boy

The central incident of this story concerns F. Winslow, a middle-aged "Western Union boy" who feels that he has failed in life.


David Hewes

He provided the golden spike marking completion of the rail and he also planned connecting the railroad company's wires to Western Union so the taps of the silver hammer driving the golden spike in Promontory Point, Utah could be heard in San Francisco.

Genuardi's

products = Bakery, dairy, deli, floral, frozen foods, general grocery, meat, produce, seafood, snacks, Starbucks, and Western Union.

George Albert Frost

In 1865 he joined Colonel Franklin L. Pope's division of the Western Union surveying party to British Columbia for which he produced sketches.

Grosvenor P. Lowrey

Grosvenor P. Lowrey (September 25, 1831 - April 21, 1893) was a 19th-century corporate attorney who served as consul to numerous powerful interests like Thomas Edison, Western Union, Wells Fargo and The New York Metropolitan Railway Company.

Herb Muschel

In 1954, he founded PR Newswire, which was a cutting edge service that once distributed corporate financial news at a time when the Federal Communications Commission allowed only AT&T and Western Union to send printed messages to a third person.

Hollis Hills, Queens

The parkway was built by William Kissam Vanderbilt, a descendant of the family that presided over the New York Central Railroad and Western Union.

Rwanda–United States relations

American business interests have been small; currently, private U.S. investment is limited to the tea industry, franchising (FedEx, Coca-Cola, Western Union, and MoneyGram) and small holdings in service and manufacturing concerns.

Syracuse Telephonic Exchange

D. L. Pyke, superintendent of Western Union in Syracuse, opened a rival exchange in the Wieting Block in Downtown Syracuse.