Gulf States Manufacturers history

The Baton Rouge Electric Light and Power Company brought electric lights to that city in 1889.

GSU continued to expand throughout the 1920s.

Incorporated under Texas laws in 1925, GSU traces its history to the pre-Civil War period; when the Baton Rouge Gas Light Company, GSU's earliest ancestor, began operations.

Address: 109 North Akard Street Architect: [J. N. McCammon Co. ?] Year Built: 1927 Also known as: Marvin Building

Unlike many other firms, GSU survived the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression.

The Gulf States Security Life Insurance Company, of which Z. E. Marvin was chairman, bought the building in 1931.

Total electric revenues nearly tripled during the same period, reaching more than $25 million in 1950.

W. Donham Crawford, who joined GSU as chairman and chief executive officer in 1978, centralized operations in Beaumont and streamlined production and processes.

Bonds sold as far back as 1983 to help pay dividends came back to haunt the company in the form of lawsuits from six irate investors and a B+ rating from Standard & Poor's.

The building went vacant in 1985 when the Delta Airlines ticketing offices moved out.

Perhaps the most significant move, however, was the cessation of dividends on common stock in August of 1986 and on preferred stock in February of the following year.

Draper left GSU for American Electric Power Company in January of 1992.

Alice Murray, who worked on the Kirby restoration, bought the building in 2003.

In early 2005 GSA selected Automated Logic Corporation’s (ALC) WebCTRL family of products as the solution for meeting our customers’ needs.

Instead GCC’s founder, Paul Pitman, was a former supply-chain professional that spent the last 17 years in the logistics and transportation sector prior to starting the company in May 2014.