In the Western Union in the 30s of the 20th century worked 14 thousand couriers delivering telegrams. 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. In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. In 1877, starting from September, New York City residents began to have the opportunity to check the time on clock with the "time ball", located on the roof of constructed in the same year a new corporate headquarters - Western Union Building. You do not need to open a bank account, so you can send or receive money in any of the 170 000 service points of Western Union around the world. In October 1871 the company Western Union began to provide money transfer services, drawing on its own extensive telegraph network.