Inventory of the Ohio Edison Company Records, 1869-1964

Biography of Biography or History

The Ohio Edison Company (OEC) was a publicly-traded holding company that began in 1950 as a merger between the Ohio Public Service and Ohio Edison. Ohio Edison Company, and its predecessors, supplied electric power, natural gas, and mass transportation to northern and central Ohio. Ohio Public Service started business in 1921 when Trumbull Public Service, Massillon Electric and Gas, Alliance Gas and Power, Lorain County Electric, and Utilities Construction Company merged. In 1922 the new company gained control over Ashland Gas and Electric and began to connect its subsidiaries by constructing a high voltage transmission system. By 1924 Ohio Public Service had purchased Sandusky Gas and Electric, Port Clinton Electric Light and Power, and Northwestern Ohio Railway and Power Company. Shortly after acquiring these companies, Ohio Public Service extended its high voltage transmission system to Toledo, thus connecting all its subsidiaries.

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Ohio Public Service absorbed more small electric power, gas, and street car companies in central and northern Ohio. In 1946 the company made its most important acquisition when it gained control of the Marion Reserve Power Company, a firm formed from approximately twenty-five smaller companies. During the period 1946-1950 Ohio Public Service did not acquire any new firms and its structure remained the same until 1950 when it merged with Ohio Edison. By 1949, Ohio Public Service operated six power plants serving a 3,100 square mile area in northern and central Ohio containing a population estimated at 526,000.

Ohio Edison became incorporated on July 5, 1930 by a merger of Akron Steam Heat Company, London Light and Power, Pennsylvania-Ohio Power and Light, Pennsylvania-Ohio Electric Company (these latter two companies operated electric, gas and street car firms in the Youngstown, Ohio and Sharon and New Castle, Pennsylvania areas), Northern Ohio Power and Light Company, and several small street car and utility companies in the Akron-Canton area. During the same year, Ohio Edison purchased Ohio River Edison and Ohio River Transmission. By 1931 the company acquired firms in Ravenna, Medina, Doylestown, and Seville, Ohio. Throughout the rest of the 1930s Ohio Edison continued to gain control of street railways and light and power and real estate firms.

By 1949, Ohio Edison operated six power stations which provided power to customers mainly in the Akron-Youngstown area and in Springfield, located in western Ohio. The company served a total of 237 communities with a population of approximately 1,000,000. All of its subsidiaries were interconnected by a high voltage transmission system. In addition to providing electrical power, Ohio Edison also operated a steam heating company in Akron, Youngstown, and Springfield.

In March 1950 the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the merger between Ohio Public Service and Ohio Edison. By April 1950 stockholders of both companies approved the merger, which officially took effect on May 1, 1950. Under the terms of the agreement Ohio Edison distributed one share of 3.9 percent preferred stock for one share 3.9 percent preferred Ohio Public Service stock. Ohio Edison then gave .548 of a share of its common stock for one share of Ohio Public common stock.

By the following year, Ohio Edison Company served 569 rural communities and twenty-two municipalities with a total population of approximately 1,500,000. Major cities served included Akron, Youngstown, Lorain, Springfield, Warren, and Mansfield. The company also had interconnecting transmission lines with Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, Dayton Power and Light, Ohio Power Company, and Toledo Edison. By that time, OEC had become one of the major utilities within Ohio. It employed 5,388 people and had 6,164 preferred stockholders and 67,551 common stockholders.

With the retirement of Walter Sammis in 1964, D. Bruce Mansfield, the newly appointed president, changed the focus of the OEC to the forming of "power pools" with other utility companies. One such power pool was the Central Area Power Coordination Group (CAPCO), which formed in 1967 and included the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, Penn Power, the Duquesne Light Company, and the Toledo Edison Company. With this collaboration, the OEC was able to construct its first nuclear powered facility in Shipping Port, Pennsylvania in 1970.

Mansfield was succeeded as president by John R. White in 1975. The late '70s proved to be challenging for White, who dealt with the first lawsuits filed by the Environmental Protection Agency against the OEC for lack of compliance with the Clean Air Act amendments of 1977. Two other issues of concern for White during his tenure as president were massive power outages due to Ohio's Blizzard of January 1978 and shortages of coal that depleted the company's fuel reserves. This latter situation was caused by a combination of the freezing ice on the Ohio River delaying barge deliveries of coal to the plants and a 109 day coal miners' strike.

Justin T. Rodgers, Jr. took over after White's retirement in 1980 and sold the steam power operations facilities in Akron and Youngstown. During the 1990s the company focus was on more ecologically friendly procedures with projects such as burning treated municipal waste or scrap tires at coal-fired generating plants. This trend would continue in March of 1993 when Rodgers retired and Willard Holland took control as OEC president and committed the company in focusing on the upcoming 1995 amendments imposed by the Clean Air Act.

Holland would remain president until 1996 when the OEC and its subsidiary, the Pennsylvania Power Company, Centerior Energy Corp. and its subsidiaries, the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, and the Toledo Edison Company all merged to become FirstEnergy Corp. With Holland as the new CEO and H. Peter Burg serving as the newly appointed president, FirstEnergy would become the 11th largest investor-owned electric system in the nation, based on annual electric sales of 64 billion kilowatt-hours, and had combined assets of nearly $20 billion. The new company employed some 10,000 employees, serving 2.1 million customers within 13,200 square miles of northern and central Ohio and western Pennsylvania. FirstEnergy had 11,681 megawatts of generating capacity and 57 transmission interconnections with 8 electric systems.

Information for this historical background was taken from the following sources, The International Directory of Company Histories. Vol. 5, edited by Adele Hast (Detroit, St. James Press, 1992); FirstEnergy Corporation, Company History. http://www.firstenergycorp.com/corporate/Corporate_Profile/Company _History.html (accessed February, 6 2009); David Adams. "Ohio Edison, Diebold Hand Reins To Chief Executives / Holland New CEO at Edison," The Akron Beacon Journal, October 16, 1996, p. B6; and NewsBank on-line database (America's Newspapers) http://infoweb.newsbank.com (accessed February 4, 2009).

Scope and Content

The records are organized into two major series. Series I contains records created by the companies that formed Ohio Edison Company, 1869-1964. Series II includes records from the companies that formed Ohio Public Service Company, 1869-1952. Within each series the subsidiary companies are listed in alphabetical order. Records dealing with two related companies are cross-referenced. For example, financial reports for Alliance Power and Stark Electric Railroad are printed in the same booklet. It would be necessary to see both Alliance Power and Stark Electric Railroad. Under company headings various types of material can be found such as minute books, reports to regulating agencies, internal correspondence, and reports.

The records contain a wide range of materials from approximately two hundred companies. Minute books, internal reports, Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) reports, Ohio Tax Commission reports, Interstate Commerce Commission reports, technical drawings, and photographs are included. Of special interest is material relating to a 1935 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) case and 1940-1942 Federal Power Commission (FPC) case. In both cases the records contains internal correspondence and background material used in preparing the case. Other materials of special interest include various reports to the SEC covering mergers between Ohio Public Service Company and Ohio Edison and minute books dating into the 19th century that provide glimpses of business methods used during that era.

For a researcher interested in street car and interurban development, the collection holds numerous possibilities. In particular the Stark Electric Railroad material contains PUCO annual and accident reports, timetables, motormen reports, and financial records. The Pennsylvania-Ohio System material includes photographs of street cars used in various public relations award presentations.

In addition to street car material anyone interested in electrical engineering or the history of technology can find the technical drawings, reports, and photographs of turbines, generators, and power lines helpful. This material covers the 1920s and 1930s.

The Ohio Public Service Company (Series II) legal files contain a large amount of records dealing with the legal aspects of the company. The files contain information on law suits, regulatory agency hearings, and real estate sale purchases. The bulk of information covers the years 1911-1943 and would be helpful to students and researchers interested in law or business administration.

Statement of Arrangement

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

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Preferred Citation

[Identification of Item], Ohio Edison Company Records, Archival Services, University Libraries, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio.