Titled:   After 150 yrs, Western Union ends telegram service

"Effective January 27, 2006," the company said in a note posted without ceremony on its Web site, "Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage."

James Lileks, as usual, has gathered some long lost art from the bygone days:

Happy Caucasian Patriarch Day! Here you see the variety of boilerplate available to the tongue-tied son. Note the art in the corner – either Dad has ascended in the Rapture, or was the victim of spontaneous human combustion. Note also that one could send a telegram from home and have it charged on your phone bill – something that must have seemed quite modern. Which, I suppose, it was.