Biography"The Western Union Company is an American worldwide financial services and communications company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Until it discontinued the service in 2006, Western Union was the leading American company in the business of transmitting telegrams. Western Union, as an industrialized monopoly, dominated the American telegraph industry in both the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1851, the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company was organized in Rochester, New York, by Samuel L. Selden, Hiram Sibley, and others, with the goal of creating one great telegraph system with unified and efficient operations. Meanwhile, Ezra Cornell had bought back one of his bankrupt companies and renamed it the New York & Western Union Telegraph Company. Originally fierce competitors, by 1856 both groups were convinced that consolidation was their only alternative for progress. The merged company was named the Western Union Telegraph Company at Cornell's insistence, and Western Union was born." -- Wikipedia
