The only telegraph machine in Orange County sits across from the only other telegraph machine in Orange County, polished relics to the first great breakthrough in mass communications, now all but ...

ZHEJIANG, East China — To reach one of China’s last telegraph stations, Thomas Yang spent 18 hours crossing three provinces on one slow train. Just to send a message that would travel even slower.

She was 89. At age 21 in July 1944, she was operating the Western Union telegraph machine at Green’s drugstore downtown when the news of casualties from the June 6, 1944 invasion began to arrive.

A gymnasium on the other side of the grand staircase has already collapsed. The roof above the telegraph machine has begun to perforate. “I'm not sure if we go in 2020 that the roof won't be collapsed ...