Re: Morse

The "AS" office at Alamosa was the RAILROAD relay office, not Western Union's.
Western Union FY at Alamosa was the W.U. city office and served the local area, plus it was a source of terminal battery for a number of the railroad's wires. The Western Union Morse way-wire arrangement provided all W.U. city and railroad depot agency offices in the area with a direct wire to the Pueblo W.U. relay office, on one wire or the other. This was used until W.U. closed all the Morse offices in 1959.
Railroad relay office "AS" function was to relay railroad operational and administrative messages from the direct Denver Message wire to and from other RR offices on the Narrow gauge, the branch to Creede, and other offices that did not have a direct wire connection with Denver. Also, AS relayed to/from from the Santa Fe joint use wire 01 which was used as a "train" wire, Western Union wire, and RR message wire, as needed.
In later years after the direct Denver wire on the valley line was gone, there was installed a teleprinter wire direct from both Pueblo and Denver to Alamosa via Walsenburg, and then AS relayed RR admin traffic from it to/from the RR Morse offices it still had connections with, including Durango. The wires to Silverton
were operated until the early 1950's when snowslides wrecked the line. It was never
rebuilt. The line on the Farmington branch was also abandoned about this same period.