GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation (1955–1982), was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System. The company operated from 1926, with roots tracing further back than that, until 2000, when it was acquired by Bell Atlantic; the combined company took the name Verizon.
Exelon Corporation is an American Fortune 100 energy company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It generates revenues of approximately $33.5 billion and employs approximately 34,000 people. Exelon is the largest electric parent company in the United States by revenue, the largest regulated utility in the United States with approximately 10 million customers, and also the largest operator of nuclear power plants in the United States. It was created in October 2000 by the merger of PECO Energy Company of Philadelphia and Unicom Corp of Chicago, which owned Commonwealth Edison.
The Illinois and Midland Railroad is a railroad in the U.S. state of Illinois, serving Peoria, Springfield and Taylorville. Until 1996, when Genesee & Wyoming Inc. bought it, the company was named the Chicago and Illinois Midland Railway. It was once a Class I railroad, specializing in the hauling of coal. At the end of 1970 it operated 121 route-miles on 214 miles of track; it reported 255 million ton-miles of revenue freight that year.
UGI Corporation is an energy distribution company headquartered in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, with extensive operations in the United States and Europe. In July 2014 the company disclosed it was acquiring Totalgaz S.A.'s LPG distribution operations in France for €450 million.
Kidder, Peabody & Co. was an American securities firm, established in Massachusetts in 1865. The company's operations included investment banking, brokerage, and trading.
Federal Signal Corporation is a global corporation with about 2,800 employees located in Oak Brook, Illinois. Federal Signal is best known for its variety of emergency lighting, sirens, industrial equipment, and public safety solutions under brands including Federal Signal, Elgin, Guzzler, Jetstream, Vactor and Victor.
SunEdison, Inc. is a renewable energy company headquartered in the U.S. In addition to developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants, it also manufactures high purity polysilicon, monocrystalline silicon ingots, silicon wafers, solar modules, solar energy systems, and solar module racking systems. Originally a silicon-wafer manufacturer established in 1959 as the Monsanto Electronic Materials Company, Monsanto sold the company in 1989.
The Real Estate Title Insurance Company of Philadelphia was the world's first title insurance company.
Consolidated Indemnity and Insurance Company was a Hartford, Connecticut-based firm which became insolvent during the Great Depression. The corporation is important because it employed executives who were formerly directors of significant business concerns of New York City, in the early 1930s and before. Consolidated Indemnity and Insurance Company was organized in October 1928 with a capital of $2,500,000 and a surplus of $7,300,000. Among its fifteen directors was Saul Singer, vice-president of the New York Bank of the United States and C. Stanley Mitchell, president of the Central Mercantile Trust Company. Its president was John F. Gilchrist, chairman of the Tate Transit Commission. Gilchrist was a close personal and boyhood friend of Alfred E. Smith.
Central West Public Service Corporation was a Chicago, Illinois-based utility company that operated in Iowa, South Dakota, Texas, and Minnesota. It owned stock in other utilities that operated in Illinois, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, Virginia, and West Virginia.
The Universal Wireless Communication Co., Inc. was an American telegraph company, based in Buffalo, New York from 1928 to 1930.
American Yvette Company was a Chicago, Illinois based business that manufactured cosmetics and operated beauty shops. It thrived in the late 1920s and 1930s. The company ran hairdressing and beauty shops in thirty-seven leading department stores in thirty-four cities in the United States, in February 1929. It maintained exclusive rights to manufacture and sell Evera permanent wave machines in the United States and foreign countries. The firm is significant for being innovative during the Great Depression, especially in maintaining efficiency of production.
The Associated Telephone Utilities Company was a Wisconsin-based power company that went bankrupt in 1933, during the time of the Great Depression. Prior to the economic upheaval in the United States the utility was a prominent player in the electrical power business in the Midwestern United States. An appeal by receivers appointed for the Associated Telephone Utilities Company was filed around April 1933, contesting the bankruptcy of the utility, and was reorganized in 1934 as General Telephone. A chancellor in a court of chancery permitted the petition to be filed in United States District Court.
Zonite Products Corporation was a New York City based company formed in 1922. Headquartered in the Chrysler Building, it became a leader in the medical preparations field starting in 1930. In February 1930, it purchased for $215,000 the New Brunswick manufacturing plant of Reichardt Cocoa & Chocolate Company. By April 1931, Zonite's subsidiaries became concentrated in a single production facility. These included Zonite, Forhan's toothpaste and antiseptic, Argyrol, and Larvex. Annette's Perfect Cleanser Company was acquired in March 1932.
The State Line Generating Plant was a coal-fired electrical generating station that operated from 1929 until 2012. It was located on the coast of Lake Michigan, bordering the state line separating Indiana from Illinois but within the corporate limits of Hammond, Indiana. As of 2008–09, it had a year-round capacity of 515 megawatts.
The Civic Opera Building is a 45-story office tower located at 20 North Wacker Drive in Chicago. The building opened November 4, 1929, and has an Art Deco interior. It contains a 3,563-seat opera house, the Civic Opera House, which is the second-largest opera auditorium in North America. Today, the opera house is the permanent home of the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
The Electric Bond and Share Company (Ebasco) was organized by General Electric and prior to its breakup was the largest electric power Holding company in the United States. It was forced to divest its holding companies and reorganize due to the passage of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Ebasco filed suit against the Act, claiming it was unconstitutional but lost. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission would take twenty-five years of legal action to break up Ebasco and the other major U.S. electric holding companies until they conformed with the 1935 act. It was allowed to retain control of its foreign electric power holding company known as the American & Foreign Power Company (A&FP). After its reorganization, it became an investment company, but soon turned into a major designer and engineer of both fossil fuel and nuclear power electric generation facilities. Its involvement in the 1983 financial collapse of the Washington Public Power Supply System's five nuclear reactors led to Ebasco's demise because of the suspension of nuclear power orders and lawsuits that included numerous asbestos claims. The U.S. nuclear industry stopped all construction of new facilities following the 1979 nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, going into decline because of radiation safety concerns and major construction cost overruns.
