I am still trying to locate a photo of the W.U. Bldg in Richmond, Va. –
but I noticed the building in the Kansas City photo is almost a dead ringer for
the Richmond office building..
It was a three story Red Brick, and the corner
entrance in the Kansas City photo looks identical to the public entrance to the
building where I worked in Richmond in the 1940’s. It was located on the
northeast corner of 7th St. & E. Grace sts. The
address was either 600 or 601 E Grace St. The C&P telephone company
was located across Grace street on the Southeast corner
The W.U. business office that accepted or delivered telegrams was located on the
first floor. ADT signal center equipment occupied space immediately
adjacent to the W.U. office.
There was a side entrance on the 7th st side,
where there was also a bicycle rack for the W.U. messengers. The side entrance
led to an elevator to the Message Switching Center in the operating
room on the second floor housing tie line, deskfax, and Morse terminations, and
to the W&R room on the third floor, where all wire lines terminated in the
multiplexes and carrier equipment.
Pneumatic tubes operated between the three floors, and also
connected with various branch offices in other parts of the city.
The Western Union building was one of the first commercial buildings to have air
conditioning installed around 1945 following the end of World War II. The Air
Conditioning system was designed by W.U. engineering to maintain temperature and
humidity within 1-2 degrees and 50% humidity respectively, controlling input of
outside air and injecting water spray as necessary to maintain humidity and
reduce static electricity.
The Richmond office was the guinea pig for installation of the first
Reperforator Message Selective Switching equipment that was designed to
operate automatically without the necessity for routing clerks using cords and
plugs.
That system was the basis for the Plan-55 system
designed for use by the U.S. Air Force in 1956, which later evolved into the
fully computerized AUTODIN system.
The U.S. Defense department used that system for both
classified and unclassified worldwide military message communications. AUTODIN
passed message traffic continuously, 24 hours a day, operating at an on-line
efficiency rate of 99.9% for more than 40 years.