Western Union has taken of 451st position in the rating Fortune 500 in 2009, having moved from 473rd line in 2008. America was on the verge of civil war and needed a reliable connection between the North and South. On the telegraph market of the USA at this time were operated with six large companies: American Telegraph Company, New York Albany and Buffalo Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company, Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph, Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company, New Orleans & Ohio Telegraph Company, and the brainchild of Sibley & Co. - The Western Union Telegraph. Another invention of Western Union - time synchronization. In 2007 the company made 167.7 million transactions on money transfers between individuals and 404.6 million transactions between physical and legal persons. The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. The first offices of company were located in the Reynolds Arcade building in Rochester, New York. The sign above the main entrance to the building - Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same. Sibley, the founder of Western Union, did not build a new telegraph lines, and persuaded the other players to join. American Telegraph Company, however, still had to buy it.