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. The presence of Western Union Gold Card at the client greatly simplifies the process of further processing of money transfers of and reduces the operation time for the sending of money, as the "Gold Card" is a carrier of the personal information about the client. 1980 - for the first time in the history of Western Union revenues from money transfers exceeded the income from the telegraph service. In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. July 3, 1884 the company's shares were included in the calculation base for the newly created stock index Dow Jones Transportation Average. In 1864, fearing the laying of long underwater lines, Western Union offered to carry out laying of telegraph lines to Europe through the Russian Alaska under the narrow Bering Strait and then to Siberia with branching in the major cities of Europe. In 2007 the company made 167.7 million transactions on money transfers between individuals and 404.6 million transactions between physical and legal persons. Western Union incomes for 2007 have made $4,9 billion US dollars, and the quantity of transactions has made 572 million. Thanks to cooperation with Western Union the Associated Press at the end of the XIX century took almost monopolistic position in the U.S. market news. The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States.