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. In 1866, Sibley ordered the engineers to develop a Western Union telegraph system of stock quotes in real time. 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. By 1861 Western Union telegraph lines entangled the whole America. It's time to explore Europe. 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.