Centel Corporation was an American telecommunications company, with primary interests in basic telephone service, cellular phone service and cable television service.

Early history

In 1900, Max McGraw took his savings from his newspaper route to start an electrical repair and supply shop, the McGraw Electric Company, in

Sioux City, Iowa Sioux City () is a city in Woodbury County, Iowa, Woodbury and Plymouth County, Iowa, Plymouth counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 85,797 in the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Iowa, fo ...

. Over the years, McGraw's company grew from residential wiring installation to include industrial wiring, electrical supply wholesaling, and electronics manufacturing. In 1922, McGraw entered the

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

business with the purchase of Central Telephone and Electric Company of

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

. McGraw's businesses grew rapidly, and in 1926 more than 20 separate electric and telephone companies were consolidated as Central West Public Service Company. Through a series of mergers, acquisitions, purchases, sales, and re-purchases, the electrical supply and manufacturing side of the business would form the nucleus of McGraw-Edison. Through similar processes, the telecommunications side would become Centel, which became the name of the company in 1982.

Centel

Centel provided telephone service through its Central Telephone Company subsidiary. Its largest coverage areas by lines installed were Las Vegas, Chicago suburbs (Des Plaines, Park Ridge and unincorporated Cook County just outside the village limits of Northbrook, Glenview and Niles),

Tallahassee, Florida Tallahassee ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of and the only incorporated municipality in Leon County, Florida, Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Fl ...

and

Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city (United States), independent city in Virginia, United States. It is the county seat, seat of government of Albemarle County, Virginia, Albemarle County, which surrounds the ...

. It was, until the breakup of AT&T in 1984, the fifth-largest telephone company in the United States after

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

GTE GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation (1955–1982), was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System. The company operated from 1926, with roots tracing furth ...

, United Telecom and Contel. Centel also owned a stake in Keyfax, a

teletext Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipped television sets. Teletext sends data in the broadcast signal, hidden in the invisible vertical blanking interval area at the to ...

videotex Videotex (or interactive videotex) was one of the earliest implementations of an end-user information system. From the late 1970s to early 2010s, it was used to deliver information (usually pages of text) to a user in computer-like format, typi ...

service operating in the Chicago area, alongside

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building automation, industrial automa ...

and

Field Enterprises Field Enterprises, Inc. was a private holding company that operated from the 1940s to the 1980s, founded by Marshall Field III and others, whose main assets were the '' Chicago Sun'' and '' Parade'' magazine. For various periods of time, Field En ...

. The service was discontinued by 1986.÷ Centel sold its cable operations in 1989. Centel sold its electric operations in 1991 to UtiliCorp United. Centel had consolidated revenues of $1.2 billion in 1991. Centel was purchased by Sprint in 1993 for approximately $3billion in Sprint

common stock Common stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. The terms voting share and ordinary share are also used frequently outside of the United States. They are known as equity shares or ordinary shares in the UK and other C ...

. Centel's stock was trading at $42.50 per share on the New York Stock Exchange just before the merger announcement in May 1992, but the cash value of the deal (commonly referred to as a “takeunder”) worked out to be only $33.50 per share of Centel stock. After a bitter battle with dissident shareholders who believed the company was worth more, the merger was ultimately approved by a very narrow majority, with 50.5% of the outstanding shares voting for the merger. At the time of its 1993 purchase by Sprint, Centel provided local telephone service to 1.5million telephone lines in seven states and was also the 10th-largest U.S. cellular company with operations in 22states. It had 9,300employees. Ultimately, Sprint did not end up keeping either of Centel's businesses (cellular and local telephone service) that it acquired. The cellular operations were spun off in 1996 so Sprint could instead focus on providing Sprint PCS cellular service. The local telephone operations were spun off (after being combined with Sprint's own local telephone operations) in 2006.

Former subsidiaries

Central Telephone Company

In 2006, Sprint spun off the former Centel telephone subsidiaries (which Sprint had merged with its own United Telephone operations) as part of the formation of

Embarq Embarq Corporation was the largest independent local exchange carrier in the United States (below the Regional Bell Operating Company, Baby Bells), serving customers in 18 states and providing local, long-distance, high-speed data and wireless s ...

. Embarq was acquired in 2009 by CenturyTel, which was renamed CenturyLink (since renamed

Lumen Technologies Lumen Technologies, Inc. (formerly CenturyLink, Inc.) is an American telecommunications company headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, which offers communications, network services, security, cloud solutions, voice and managed services through ...

in 2020). Central Telephone's Florida operations were merged with Sprint's and are now CenturyLink of Florida, while the Nevada operations are now CenturyLink of Nevada. Other ex-Centel local operations were divested in 2022 to the new company Brightspeed. Earlier, in 1997, Sprint sold the Chicago-area phone operations (Des Plaines and Park Ridge) to

Ameritech AT&T Teleholdings, Inc., formerly known as Ameritech Corporation (and, before that, American Information Technologies Corporation), was an American telecommunications company that arose out of the 1984 AT&T divestiture. Ameritech was one of the ...

(now

). Operations in Iowa and Minnesota were sold to

Frontier Communications Frontier Communications Parent, Inc. is an American telecommunications company. Known as Citizens Utilities Company until 2000, Citizens Communications Company until 2008, and Frontier Communications Corporation until 2020, as a communications pr ...

in 1991, and in Ohio to CenturyTel in 1992. The Ohio operations, by this point CenturyTel of Ohio, would reunite with most of the other Centel operating companies in 2009.

Centel Cellular Company

In 1993, Centel Cellular Company changed its name to Sprint Cellular Company when Sprint acquired Centel. It was subsequently spun off as 360 Communications Company in 1996. Alltel acquired 360 Communications Company in 1998 for $4.1billion. Verizon Wireless acquired Alltel in 2008.

Centel Cable Television

In 1989, Centel sold all of its cable television operations in six separate transactions. Southeast Florida operations: to

Adelphia Communications Adelphia Communications Corporation was an American cable television company with headquarters in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1952 by brothers Gus and John Rigas after the pair purchased a cable television franchise for US$300. C ...

, which later sold to

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, o ...

, which later sold the properties to

Comcast Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

operations: to Warner Cable (then

, later to Charter Communications).

Central Florida Central Florida is a Regions of the United States#Florida, region of the U.S. state of Florida. Different sources give different definitions for the region, but as its name implies it is usually said to comprise the central part of the state, in ...

operations: to American Television and Communications Corporation (a subsidiary of Time Inc., then

), later to be spun off as Bright House Networks, and ultimately acquired by Charter Communications). Kentucky operations: to Simmons Communications (later to Frontiervision, then Adelphia, then

, and ultimately Charter Communications).

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

operations: to C-TEC (later Michigan Cable, then Avalon Cable, then Charter Communications). Illinois operations: to Jones Intercable (then taken over by

). The combined revenue of the sales amounted to $1.4billion, which yielded a net gain of over $500million to Centel.

Centel Electric

In 1991, Centel sold its electric utility holdings in Kansas and Colorado to UtiliCorp (later known as Aquila, Inc.) for $345million. In 2006, Aquila sold the Kansas electric properties to Mid-Kansas Electric Company (a cooperative). In 2008, the Colorado electric properties were acquired by Black Hills Corporation.

Notes

References

{{CenturyLink Sprint Corporation Lumen Technologies Charter Communications Telecommunications companies disestablished in 1993 Defunct companies based in Chicago Defunct telecommunications companies of the United States Telecommunications companies established in 1900 American companies established in 1900 1900 establishments in Iowa 1993 disestablishments in Illinois Las Vegas Tallahassee, Florida Charlottesville, Virginia Sioux City, Iowa St. Louis Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange