Technology turns on a dime. It takes forever to get established, and a second to become obsolete.

And my grandpa just shook his head saying they were sent by cavemen and he made a point of replying to every personal telegram he ever received with a phone call or an airmailed letter as verbose as possible just on principle. He then went on a purple faced rant about how when he retired Telex machines had been in use for years and they were still receiving reams and reams of telegrams typed out and hand-delivered by an "Okie Peckerhead" from other businesses who presumably also had Telex machines.

was once sick and was stuck in a bed upstairs in his home. His frequent demands were ignored by his wife and children. But he had a telephone in his bedroom. So, he rang up the Post Office and sent a telegram to his wife downstairs. The telegram said "BRING SOUP".

What a character.

The telegraph made a very large impact on the way the western part of this county developed. That is how my little corner of Idaho found out about the ending of WWII. No radio could reach us very well. Sad to see it go.

It was alway a good story, but aas a service is only lasted 18 months, until the telegraph stepped in.

Back in the caveman days international phone calls to some nations were impossible or incredibly expensive. Even international "air mail" could take weeks to arrive, or vanish into a black hole forever. Telegrams were the only quick and reliable means of communication...

I've also lived in a very impoverished community that only had a couple of phones. One was a pay phone you usually had to wait in line to use. There was another line too for incoming calls answered by a number of unofficial and often self-appointed receptionists who'd take short messages and tack them to a public bulletin board. "Hunter: Call your mom." That sort of thing.

If it was an urgent message they'd send someone out to find you, often a kid. If it was extremely urgent they'd radio local law enforcement who would track you down.

In this community everybody knew everybody else's business...

That same community is nearly as impoverished today as it ever was, but it has cell phone service. Even people who don't have cell phones usually have a trusted friend or family member who does. I wonder how that changed the social dynamics of the community.