Archives West Finding Aid

Samuel Morse, the inventor of the Morse code, sent the first telegram from Washington D.C. to Baltimore in 1844. The Western Union Telegraph Company was established ten years later to exploit the cutting-edge technology of the telegraph, with the astonishing potential to send cross-country messages in less than a day. The company expanded rapidly by buying out smaller competitors, and in 1861 Western Union opened the first transcontinental telegraph line. The company enjoyed phenomenal success, and in 1876 its capitalization was $41 million. By 1900, Western Union operated a million miles of telegraph lines and two international undersea cables. The company continued to grow by making strategic acquisitions, and its monopoly power was complete by the 1940s.

The Western Union line reached Seattle, Washington on the afternoon of October 26, 1864, when the first telegram arrived at small office on the east side of First Avenue near Cherry Street. The Civil War had temporarily halted the American western expansion, and Seattle had only 500 permanent residents at the time. Daniel F. Leahy was in charge of the Seattle wire office, and he clicked off a reply message from the “Citizens of Seattle” to President Abraham Lincoln. It arrived in Washington five days later.

The telegraph wires extended north to Seattle from Olympia, and lines were strung on trees through deep forests. When rain caused the branches to sag, Leahy had difficulty receiving messages in Seattle. J.M. Lyon, a master at “reading” faint ticking, succeeded Leahy in 1865, and he soon earned a reputation for working grounded wires. The telegraph toll from Seattle to San Francisco was $3.50 plus a “war tax” for ten words. At that time, there was no regular ship service between the cities and letters went overland, taking 21 days each way. The Western Union main administration office in downtown Seattle was eventually established at 113 Cherry Street in the Alaska Building. By 1930, there were over 20 Western Union Seattle branch locations, including the Smith Tower, King Street Station and most of the major hotels and office buildings.

Western Union technical innovations included the first charge card for customers (1914), teletypewriters (1923), the singing telegram (1933), intercity fax (1935), and telex service (1958.) Western Union telegrams were first transmitted manually, and later through a more sophisticated store and forward message switching system. Telegrams reached their peak popularity in the 1920s and 1930s when it was cheaper to send a telegram than make a long-distance call. For more than 150 years, messages were hand delivered in signature yellow envelopes by a uniformed courier. The last Western Union telegram was sent in 2006.