TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Personal Opinion Telegram and Mailgram - Discontinuance?

Re: Personal Opinion Telegram and Mailgram - Discontinuance?

Wesrock@aol.com
Tue, 2 Aug 2005 09:29:21 EDT

In a message dated 1 Aug 2005 10:51:02 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:

> Western Union with the US Post Office also offered a popular and
> profitable service known as Mailgram. WU would send your message to a
> teleprinter in a post office where it would be delivered in the next
> mail. This was a prompt and cost-effective way to communicate
> important information. Industries used it extensively to officially
> notify laid-off workers to return to work.

There were only a limited number of post offices, covering a wide
regional area, that received Mailgrams and put them in the mail. The
one serving Oklahoma was, I believe, located in Wichita, Kansas, which
meant with the vagaries of the Postal Service's mechanized mail
routing that a Mailgram took two days from Wichita to Oklahoma City
(160 miles). This was usually no faster than it would have been by
ordinary mail.

In the days before the Postal Service went to a mechanized mail
sorting and distributing system, Wichita to Oklahoma City, and v.v.,
was overnight. So was Kansas City to Oklahoma City and v.v., Fort
Worth and Dallas to Oklahoma City and v.v., Wichita Falls to Oklahoma
City and v.v.'

Now, mail between Lawton, Oklahoma, and Wichita Falls, Texas, about 40
miles apart and considered a single market area, takes two days.
Unless you use the curious and unusual mailbox at the Lawton post
office marked "Wichita Falls only," which presumably bypasses the
mechanized system and goes directly from Lawton to Wichita Falls,
rather than making a mechanized stopover in Oklahoma City and another
one in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. (Yes, they have three mailboxes
rather than the usual two -- "Local," "Out of Town." "Wichita Falls
only."

Wes Leatherock
wesrock@aol.com
wleathus@yahoo.com

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