Exelon Energy history

He chartered the Pennsylvania Heat, Light and Power Company in 1895 with a massive capitalization of $10 million and immediately began to acquire competitors, taking over Columbia Electric Light Company and courting the Philadelphia Edison Company.

By March 1896, he had merged with Edison and earned a seat on its board of directors.

In 1898, Maloney absorbed five of Philadelphia's eight remaining independent arc lighting companies.

He established an advertising department as early as 1901, and his rate cuts were well timed and well publicized.

Insull controlled MWU, and by 1912 MWU, in turn, controlled utilities in 13 states through relatively small shareholdings.

During that period, the electric utility added twelve generators with a total capacity of over 300,000 kW. Joseph B. McCall advanced to the chairmanship of the company in 1924, and was succeeded as president by Walter H. Johnson, who served for four years.

After the October 1929 stock market crash, Insull, who believed the Great Depression would be short, continued to spend great sums of money on both the company and his many philanthropic endeavors.

1932: Banks take over Insull's MWU holding company; Insull is forced to resign amid fraud and embezzlement charges.

The Depression also brought Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and with it the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulated the activities of holding companies, in 1935.

1943: PE becomes an independent company once again.

In 1947, the city of Chicago conducted a study of ComEd's service and found the company was significantly overcharging, especially residential and commercial customers.

R. George Rincliffe advanced through the executive ranks to PE's presidency in 1952.

1960: ComEd operates the nation's first privately financed commercial nuclear power station.

In 1966, ComEd absorbed the Central Illinois Electric and Gas Company, basically establishing an integrated electric system for all of northern Illinois and further capitalizing on economies of scale.

Keystone began running in 1967, the same year that Pennsylvania Electric's Muddy Run pumped-storage hydroelectric generating plant (the largest of its type) on the Susquehanna River began operation.

1968: Regulatory delays prevent the completion of PE nuclear power plants in Limerick.

ComEd was forced to begin building a $160 million coal-fired unit at its Powerton plant in Pekin, Illinois. "The delays forced us to double-build," Ward was quoted as stating in the September 15, 1969 issue of Forbes.

The problems associated with burning fossil fuels came to a head in 1970 when the Chicago Department of Environmental Control named ComEd the worst polluter in Chicago, accusing the electric company's fossil-fuel plants of causing more sulfur pollution than all other companies in the city combined.

Robert F. Gilkeson assumed PE's helm in 1971 at the outset of a decade characterized by federal, state, and local regulation of virtually every aspect of its business, from employment to environmental practices.

That location would remain the center of PE operations until 1973.

In the interest of assuring a uranium supply, ComEd acquired Cotter Corporation, a uranium mining and milling company in 1974.

The widely publicized nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, in 1979 heightened attention of both the public and regulators, and ComEd sent teams of nuclear experts to assist and study the situation.

1980: ComEd's earnings per share sink to their lowest level in 15 years.

In 1982, the PUC refused to allow a rate hike to pay for the second phase of the plant and halted the project.

In 1986, as ComEd struggled to finance the $7.1 billion building program for the last three of 12 nuclear plants, problems with the company's Braidwood nuclear plant increased its construction cost more than 40 percent.

Also in 1990, at a time when customers were growing increasingly unhappy with paying some of the nation's highest rates, the utility's franchise term with the city of Chicago was due to expire.

The company's costs were still high, and with a series of lawsuits on the verge of settlement ComEd cut its dividend in 1992 by a whopping 47 percent.

These cost-cutting efforts bore fruit before the middle of the decade, as per share earnings recovered somewhat to $2.45 million in 1993 on year-to-year revenue and profit increases of 0.6 percent (to $3.99 billion) and 23 percent (to $590.6 million), respectively.

1994: PE adopts the name PECO Energy Company; ComEd becomes part of a new holding company, Unicom Corporation.

Paquette retired in 1997 leaving Corbin A. McNeill, Jr., at the helm.

To that end he sold 16 of ComEd's non-nuclear plants for $4.8 billion in early 1999, while the company also sought approval of a $3.4 billion bond issue.

The $31.8 billion merger was officially completed in October 2000.