Missouri Gas Energy (MGE) was a

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

distribution company headquartered in

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

in the United States, with offices in

St. Joseph Joseph (; el, Ἰωσήφ, translit=Ioséph) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who, according to the canonical Gospels, was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. The Gospels also name some brothers ...

Lee's Summit Lee's Summit is a city located within the counties of Jackson (primarily) and Cass in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. As of the 2020 census its population was 101,108, making it the sixth-largest city in both ...

, Warrensburg, Joplin,

Republic A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...

, Neosho and

Monett Monett is the most-populous city in the Barry County, Missouri, Barry and Lawrence County, Missouri, Lawrence counties in the U.S. state of Missouri. The city is located in the Ozark Mountains, Ozarks, just south of Interstate 44 in Missouri, Inte ...

. MGE served over in 155 western Missouri communities and was a division of the Southern Union Company until it was ultimately sold to the

Spire Inc Spire Inc. () is a public utility holding company based in St. Louis, Missouri, providing natural gas service through its regulated core utility operations while engaging in non-regulated activities that provide business opportunities. Its primar ...

. Its business is regulated by the

Missouri Public Service Commission The Missouri Public Service Commission regulates investor-owned telephone, electric, natural gas, steam, water, and sewer utilities in the state of Missouri. Manufacturers and retail dealers who sell new and used manufactured homes and modular un ...

. MGE's primary business was the delivery of natural gas. The company also had programs to promote the development of

compressed natural gas Compressed natural gas (CNG) is a fuel gas mainly composed of methane (CH4), compressed to less than 1% of the volume it occupies at standard atmospheric pressure. It is stored and distributed in hard containers at a pressure of , usually in cy ...

(CNG) vehicles throughout its service territory, and headed up the Midwest CNG Coalition, a consortium of CNG interests from Missouri,

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

and

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

. MGE was sold by

Southern Union Company Southern Union Company was a natural gas utility and energy resources company based in Houston, Texas. In 2012, the company was acquired by Energy Transfer Partners. The company owned and operated more than of gathering and transportation pipel ...

to Energy Transfer Equity, and in turn, sold to

(formerly known as The Laclede Group) on September 1, 2013.

History

MGE can trace its roots back to 1867 with the formation of the Kansas City Gas Light & Coke Company. Before

pipeline Pipeline may refer to: Electronics, computers and computing * Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on ** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...

technology was developed to deliver natural gas from wellheads to distant cities, gas was manufactured primarily from coal in a process that produced

coal gas Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to the user via a piped distribution system. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air. Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous ...

, more commonly known as coke, for lighting, cooking and heating. In 1895, the company was reorganized and became the Kansas City Gas Company. In 1897, the company merged with its chief competitor, the Missouri Gas Company, and became the Kansas City Missouri Gas Company, though it was still commonly called by its former name. In 1873, natural gas was discovered in southeast Kansas. Following this discovery, many small companies organized to build pipelines to deliver natural gas to nearby urban areas. In 1905, two companies introduced natural gas to the greater Kansas City area: The Wyandotte County Gas Company in

Kansas City, Kansas Kansas City, abbreviated as "KCK", is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas, and the county seat of Wyandotte County. It is an inner suburb of the older and more populous Kansas City, Missouri, after which it is named. As of ...

, and the Kansas City Gas Company in Kansas City, Missouri. Both businesses were actually owned and operated by the Kansas City Gas Company, but had separate franchise agreements with each city. Although the Kansas City Gas Company was the first business on the Missouri side to provide natural gas service to the city, it was delayed due to the multiple business interests competing for the city franchise rights. The winner of this competition was a businessman named Hugh J. McGowan, who later became president of the company. McGowan and then Kansas City, Missouri mayor Jay H. Neff didn’t agree on the details of the franchise agreement and a bitter political and legal fight ensued. The conflict was finally settled after Mayor Neff left office and a franchise agreement was awarded to the company in 1906. Also during this time, an Ohioan named Henry L. Doherty, who had been successful in the utility business for many years, formed two companies: Henry L. Doherty & Company in 1905 and the Cities Service Company in 1910, which is now known as CITCO. Mr. Doherty used these companies to acquire many natural gas distribution and pipeline operations throughout Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska. The most notable of these acquisitions was the purchase of the Kansas City Gas Company and the Wyandotte County Gas Company in 1924. In 1925, Mr. Doherty consolidated his natural gas distribution businesses in these four states into The Gas Service Company, which was initially headquartered on the sixth floor of the Dwight Building in Kansas City, Missouri, and later in the Scarritt Building. The Gas Service Company served Kansas City and over 250 other communities throughout Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma until 1983. That year, Kansas Power and Light Company (KPL) bought The Gas Service Company. This marked the first of several successive changes in ownership. In 1992, KPL merged with the Kansas Gas & Electric company to become Western Resources (formerly known as

Westar Energy Evergy, Inc. is an American investor-owned utility (IOU) with publicly traded stock that has its headquarters in Topeka, Kansas, and in Kansas City, Missouri. The company was formed from a merger of Westar Energy of Topeka and Great Plains En ...

). In 1994, Western Resources sold its Missouri natural gas assets to the Southern Union Company, a pipeline company headquartered in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. Southern Union began operating this newly formed natural gas distribution division as Missouri Gas Energy. In 2012, Southern Union, along with Missouri Gas Energy, was sold to Energy Transfer Equity, a diversified natural gas and

natural gas liquids Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natur ...

pipeline company headquartered in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

. In late 2012, Spire, parent company to Laclede Gas in St. Louis, Missouri, announced its intent to purchase MGE and its sister company, New England Gas, from ETE. The deal was finalized in the third quarter of 2013 and the company is now known as Spire. As part of Spire, it is now one of the largest natural gas distribution companies in the nation. As of 2012, MGE had over 500,000 customers in 155 communities throughout western Missouri.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.missourigasenergy.com/ Natural gas companies of the United States Companies based in Kansas City, Missouri