Product Details

Historical Context

The Eastern Texas Electric Company traces its development to the New England company of Stone and Webster, an engineering-consulting company that serviced utilities through management contracts, often taking partial payment in stock, which it distributed to New England investors. In 1911, as holding companies began to replace the management-contract system, Stone and Webster formed a holding company called Eastern Texas Electric (of Maine) to accomplish a series of mergers involving ice, water, gas, and transportation properties. Though the Baton Rouge Gas Light Company, founded just before the Civil War, was the oldest of the holding company's multiple acquisitions, a typical example was the Beaumont Electric Light and Power Company, established to obtain an electric light and power property from the existing Beaumont Ice, Light, and Refrigerating Company, which not only provided electric light, but also managed the local water system and provided meat storage and ice. To increase daytime power use, Stone and Webster also acquired the Beaumont Traction Company in 1913 to run an interurban line between Beaumont and Port Arthur. The same procedure was used to take the Port Arthur Water Company through the formation of Port Arthur Light and Power and Port Arthur Ice and Refrigerating, both operating under the Maine firm, which continued to grow through a series of company formations, mergers, and reorganizations.

The company was dissolved in 1923, and a new Eastern Texas Electric Company was organized and incorporated under the laws of Delaware in 1924 to provide a more flexible financial structure and to facilitate the acquisition of new properties in the holding company chain. By 1925 the combined operating companies had 449 employees and served 114,000 people.

Later that year, the Gulf States Utilities Company was formed from as many as seventy-five corporations, municipal and town distribution systems, and personal holdings consolidated into four large companies: Eastern Texas Electric, Western Public Service, Louisiana Electric, and Baton Rouge Electric.

Related Collections