How would you send a message from Buffalo Grove in 1910?
Its 1910 in Buffalo Grove and you have the best news to send to your brothers and sisters who live in other towns around Chicago. How would you go about sending the message?
Mail Service
If you needed to send a message to a relative far away, one of the commonly used methods was the United States Postal Service. Handwritten cards and picture postcards were very popular. You could get a professional portrait picture taken, sometimes of special events like weddings or holidays, and send those to family and friends. Sometimes a handwritten note was the easiest and fastest if you wanted to send it out quickly.
Now, how quickly that note traveled was a different story and a little bit slower than today. You would buy stamps and send mail from the Weidner General Store in town. The mail would be picked up by the rural delivery route. Peter Weidner worked as the mailman in the early 1900s. Buffalo Grove was on Rural Delivery Route No. 1, and picked up the mail via horse and carriage to deliver to a more central facility.
Telegram
Another way to send a message quickly was the telegram. Telegraph offices were scattered around towns near and in Chicago. You could go to the telegraph office and pay to have your message sent via morse code on a telegraph to another office. That office would then transcribe the message and deliver it to the addressee near by.
Telegrams did not allow for lengthy messages though - most were only around 10-12 words maximum. The were often sent by the military during World War I and II to update families on the status of their loved ones fighting.
Telephone
The only phone in Buffalo Grove in 1910 was at the Weidner General Store. The General Store was the store, polling place, post office, and the only spot with a phone. The telephone came to Buffalo Grove in 1901 and the store seemed like the most logical place. Of course you would have to pay a hefty fee to use the telephone each time, so it wasn't the most cost effective method.