Indianapolis- a historical and statistical sketch, 1870,WR Holloway

EXPRESS COMPANIES. 273
annual receipts of the main office (exclusive of the receipts from press reports, the
extent of which has already been mentioned), since the establishment of the first
office in Indianapolis: 1848, $530.33; 1849, $1,105.08 ; 1850, $1,161.08; 1851,
-$1,619.28; 1852, $1,889.88; 1853, $1,808.18; 1854, $2,433 90 . 1855, $2,788.47;
1856, $2,52404; 1857, $4,29.38; 1858, $33,855.18; 1859, $4,078.72; 1860, $5,202.61;
1861, $16,098.25; 1862, $23,192.33; 1863, $22,158.32 ; 1864, $31,978.85; 1865, $33,-
418.31; 1866, $26,981.51; 1867, $23,916 75; 1868, $29,037.59; 1869, $24,854.47;
1870, $22,271.19.
The slight reduction of the receipts for the past year from those of several previous
years,' is on account of the extensive employment of the telegraph for military
purposes during the war which inflated the business of the Telegraph Com-
pany, as it did nearly every species of business.
THE TACIFIC AND ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH COMPANY.
Location of the Indianapolis office: No 21 South Meridan street.
Op the 15th December, 1869, the Pacific and Atlantic Telegraph Company opened
an office at No. 22 South Meridian street, in this city, with E. C. Hewlett, Esq.,
as manager. This company was organized as an opposition to the Western Union
Company ; and has thus far avoided the fate of previous opposition companies in
the West: which have been either absorbed into that powerful corporation, or,
after a while, have ceased to exist.
The usual result of competition has followed the establishment of the opposi-
tion office here: a large reduction (almost 66 per cent.), in the rates of telegraph-
ing to all points reached by the lines of the competing companies.
The new company gives every external evidence of a good degree of prosper-
ity and growth, considering its youth and the great wealth and power of the West-
ern Union company.
The lines have been extended as rapidly as patronage has seemed to justify ;
and the reduction in tolls caused by the establishment of competing lines, appears
to have increased the volume of business to such a degree as to sustain a healthy
opposition to the Western Union Company; in which opposition the Pacific and Atlantic,
the Atlantic and Pacific, and the Franklin Companies are combined and
mutually interested. The business of the office here shows a favorable improvement :
the receipts for the month of December, 1870, being tenfold those of the corresponding
month in 1869. The office now employs the services of a manager and
two operators, and operates wires as follows: One to Pittsburgh, two to Chicago,
two to Dayton, and one to Cincinnati. This company also has communication with
"fit Louis, via Chicago.
On the 1st February, 1871, a fire partially destroyed the building at that time
occupied by the office of this company. The office was promptly re-opened at No.
21 South Meridian street, its present location.
EXPRESS COMPANIES.
The increase in the carrying trade by express companies, at this point, has
been in proportion to the multiplication of railways, and, consequently, has been
very great.
The Adams Express Company was the first to open an office here, upon the
completion of the Madison Railway, in 1847. The first agent of the company was
M. M. Landis, Esq. As other railway lines were opened, new routes were also
'opened over them.
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