The Union Electric Company of Missouri (formerly ) was an
electric power
Electric power is the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with other SI units: thousands, millions and billions o ...
utility
As a topic of economics, utility is used to model worth or value. Its usage has evolved significantly over time. The term was introduced initially as a measure of pleasure or happiness as part of the theory of utilitarianism by moral philosopher ...
that was organized in 1902 and grew to be one of the large U.S. companies listed among the
S&P 500
The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices. As of D ...
. In 1997, its holding company merged with a smaller neighboring utility,
Central Illinois Public Service Company through its holding company, CIPSCO Inc. (formerly ), to form
Ameren
Ameren Corporation is an American power company created December 31, 1997, by the merger of St. Louis, Missouri's Union Electric Company (formerly NYSE: UEP) and the neighboring Central Illinois Public Service Company (CIPSCO Inc. holding, form ...
Corporation () based in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
.
[Ameren Corporation, About Us](_blank)
History
![Union Electric Light and Power building](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Union_Electric_Light_and_Power_building.jpeg)
The company's first incarnation, the Union Company, was organized in 1902 in
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
. Two years later, the renamed Union Electric Company built the 36 MW coal-fired Ashley Street Plant in the city's
Near North Riverfront region to provide steam heat to downtown St. Louis. The plant was for years the city's main source of electricity. It powered The Palace of Electricity's electric lights at the
1904 World's Fair
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was an World's fair, international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, from April 30 to December 1, 1904. Local, state, and federal funds tota ...
in St. Louis.
[A Century of Excellence, Ameren History 1902-2002](_blank)
, Ameren.com The plant was converted to oil in 1972 and from oil to natural gas in 1996. Today, the plant functions as a district steam plant for the city of St. Louis and is owned by Ashley Energy.
By 1906, Union Electric Company was a publicly traded stock and began to pay a cash
dividend
A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-in ...
to shareholders, which it paid every year until the 1997 merger.
[Standard & Poor's Stock Guide, April 1996]
In 1909, Union Electric began selling electric cars, and became the St. Louis agent for
Studebaker
Studebaker was an American wagon and automobile manufacturer based in South Bend, Indiana, with a building at 1600 Broadway, Times Square, Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 1852 and incorporated in 1868 as the Studebaker Brothers M ...
and
Rauch & Lang automobiles.
In 1919, the Shubert-Jefferson Theatre in the Union Electric building hosted a post-war national caucus in which the
American Legion
The American Legion, commonly known as the Legion, is a non-profit organization of U.S. war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militi ...
was born.
In 1927, a tornado struck St. Louis, destroying more than US$10 million worth of property, including Union Electric's electricity lines to the city.
By 1929, Union Electric Company became a subsidiary holding company of
North American Company,
( org chart) one of the original stocks in the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.
The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity inde ...
.
[Jeremy J. Siegel, '']Stocks for the Long Run
''Stocks for the Long Run'' is a book on investing by Jeremy Siegel. Its first edition was released in 1994. Its fifth edition was released on January 7, 2014. According to Pablo Galarza of ''Money'', "His 1994 book ''Stocks for the Long Run'' se ...
'', McGraw-Hill, Second Edition, 1998, Union Electric subsidiaries at the time included Union Electric Light and Power (Missouri) and Union Electric Light and Power of Illinois.
In 1929, UE completed
Bagnell Dam
Bagnell Dam (informally, the Osage Dam) impounds the Osage River in the U.S. state of Missouri, creating the Lake of the Ozarks. The dam is located in the city of Lakeside in Miller County, near the Camden-Miller County line. The tall concrete ...
on the
Osage River
The Osage River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed May 31, 2011 tributary of the Missouri River in central Missouri in the United States. The eighth-largest river i ...
, creating the
Lake of the Ozarks
Lake of the Ozarks is a reservoir created by impounding the Osage River in the northern part of the Ozarks in central Missouri. Parts of three smaller tributaries to the Osage are included in the impoundment: the Niangua River, Grandglaize Creek ...
with 1,400 miles of shoreline and a power station that generated almost 175 megawatts of hydroelectricity.
The associated
Union Electric Administration Building-Lakeside
Union Electric Administration Building-Lakeside, also known as Willmore Lodge and Egan Lodge, is a historic administration building and retreat overlooking Lake of the Ozarks and located near Lakeside, Miller County, Missouri. It was built in 1 ...
was constructed in 1930; it was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1998, with a boundary increase in 2011.
In 1937 the company acquired the shares of the
Union Colliery Company
The Union Colliery Company was a bituminous coal mining company based in St. Louis Missouri. The company had branch offices in Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha,
Wisconsin, as well as Detroit, Michigan.
The company was acquired in 1937 by East St. ...
,,
By 1940, Union Electric Company was one of three holding companies and also one of the ten major direct subsidiaries in the US$2.3 billion North American Company pyramid of 80 companies. At that time, North American owned more than 79% of Union Electric stock.
[ FindLaw.com]
North American Company was broken up by the
Securities and Exchange Commission
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...
after the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
decision of April 1, 1946.
Union Electric Company was then divested from North American. Until the 1997 merger, Union Electric Company traded publicly as an independent company on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol UEP.
By the 1950s, Union Electric owned gas operations in and around
Alton, Illinois
Alton ( ) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 census. It is a part of the River Bend area in the Metro-East region of the ...
, and acquired other utilities to become the third largest distributor of natural gas in Missouri.
In 1952, Union Electric joined with its future Ameren mate, the Central Illinois Public Service Company; and also with another later Ameren subsidiary, the Illinois Power Company, to form the Midwest Power Pool system.
In 1963 Union Electric completed construction of one of the largest pumped storage plants at that time, the then-350-megawatt
Taum Sauk Plant, in
Reynolds County, Missouri
Reynolds County is a County (United States), county located in the Ozark Foothills Region in the Lead Belt of Missouri. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 6,096. Its county seat is Centerville, Missouri, Centerv ...
.
In December 2005, a large section of the dam containing the plant's upper reservoir failed, draining over a billion gallons of water in less than half an hour.
In 1984, Union Electric's first nuclear energy plant, the
Callaway Nuclear Generating Station
The Callaway Plant is a nuclear power plant located on a site in Callaway County, Missouri, near Fulton, Missouri. It began operating on December 19, 1984. The plant, which is the state's only commercial nuclear unit, has one 1,190-megawat ...
, began providing 1,143 megawatts of power from
Callaway County, Missouri
Callaway County is a county located in the U.S. state of Missouri. As of the 2020 United States Census, the county's population was 44,283. Its county seat is Fulton. With a border formed by the Missouri River, the county was organized November ...
.
In 1993, Union Electric battled a
500-year flood in the St. Louis metropolitan area from the swollen
Missouri
Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
and
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
s. In 1994, Union Electric shared the industry's
Edison Award
The Edison Award is an annual Dutch music prize awarded for outstanding achievements in the music industry. It is comparable to the American Grammy Award. The Edison award itself is a bronze replica of a statuette of Thomas Edison, designed by ...
with
Midwest Power Systems, Inc., of
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, ...
, for their work providing electric service to customers during the 1993 flood disaster.
In 1995, shareholders of both Union Electric Company and CIPSCO Inc. approved the companies' merger.
The merger was completed on December 31, 1997, forming Ameren Corporation.
At the time of the merger, Union Electric had assets of nearly US$600 million, but still carried nearly US$1.8 billion in long-term debt, down from US$2.5 billion which it had accumulated by the 1980s.
The former Union Electric Company is now a subsidiary of the Ameren Corporation holding company, initially
d/b/a
A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...
AmerenUE, later becoming Ameren Missouri in 2010.
Ameren is now also a
holding company
A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...
for several other
power companies and energy companies as well.
Ameren Missouri continues to own Bagnell Dam. Ameren Missouri is responsible for managing water levels on the Lake of the Ozarks according to federal regulations; if levels are not appropriate, the lake must be closed until Ameren can solve the problem.
Today, with nine power plants, Ameren Missouri serves 1.2 million power customers and 110,000 gas customers, primarily in Missouri, where more than half of its customers reside in the St. Louis metropolitan area. It formerly served Iowa as well through the mid-1990s. The former AmerenUE also served adjoining parts of Illinois; that portion would be transferred to Ameren Illinois in 2010.
References
External links
Ameren.com
Taum Sauk
FERC Taum Sauk Page - Reports, Charges and Settlement available hereArchived
14 March 2021
{{Authority control
Defunct electric power companies of the United States
Hydroelectric power companies of the United States
Nuclear power companies of the United States
Defunct companies based in Missouri
Companies based in St. Louis
Energy companies established in 1902
Non-renewable resource companies established in 1902
1902 establishments in Missouri