American Electric Power history

Mitchell also applied his principle of consolidation to AG&E. By 1910 Mitchell had sold all of the gas properties included in the original acquisitions, a policy the company consistently followed in later years.

Following a period of strained neutrality, the United States entered the war in 1917, and the increased demands of wartime industries caused a 40 percent increase in the demand for electricity.

Mitchell was instrumental in establishing the principles upon which was based the first piece of federal legislation specifically aimed at regulating electric power, the Federal Power Act of 1920.

By 1926 Mitchell had acquired additional properties in Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

Mitchell responded by directing companies controlled by Electric Bond & Share Company to spend $97 million on construction in 1930.

Mitchell retired in 1933, however.

When the United States entered the war in 1941, there was a rise in power demand by wartime industries, which the utilities were able to meet.

In 1948 the company bought Indiana Service Corporation in Fort Wayne and consolidated it with an AG&E subsidiary, Indiana & Michigan Electric Company.

In 1954 United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Atomic Energy Act, making possible the private development of nuclear energy in the United States.

To avoid these problems, AEP bought 2,200 megawatts of power equipment overseas in 1967, an unusual procedure for a United States utility.

1980: AEP moves its headquarters to Columbus and acquires Columbus and Southern Ohio Electric Company.

By 1982, however, a recession severely affecting industry in AEP's territories caused a drop in industrial sales of 18 percent.

For AEP, which had been granted a rate increase of $260 million in 1983, the corner had been turned.

1996: Subsidiary AEP Communications is formed.

AEP moved into natural gas in 1998 with the purchase of the natural gas midstream operations of Equitable Resources in Louisiana.

AEP continued to expand on a smaller scale in 2001, with the takeover of the Quaker Coal Co.