The Associated Telephone Utilities Company was a

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

-based power company that went bankrupt in 1933, during the Great Depression.GTE Corporation. (2011)
From Encyclopædia Britannica
Retrieved on September 13, 2001 Prior to the Depression, the utility was a prominent player in the electrical power business in the

Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

. An appeal by receivers appointed for the Associated Telephone Utilities Company was filed around April 1933, contesting the bankruptcy of the utility, and it was reorganized in 1934 as

General Telephone 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 furt ...

. A chancellor in a

court of chancery The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equ ...

permitted the petition to be filed in

United States District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district co ...

Utility history

The Associated Telephone Utilities Company was founded in Wisconsin in 1926 by Sigurd Odegard. The company acquired the Indiana Telegraph Securities Company and its subsidiary companies in August 1929. The purchased utility operated 9,819 stations in

Logansport, Indiana Logansport is a city in and the county seat of Cass County, Indiana, United States. The population was 18,366 at the 2020 census. Logansport is located in northern Indiana at the junction of the Wabash and Eel rivers, northwest of Kokomo. H ...

, and

Greencastle, Indiana Greencastle is a city in Greencastle Township, Putnam County, Indiana, United States, and the county seat of Putnam County. It was founded in 1821 by Ephraim Dukes on a land grant. He named the settlement for his hometown of Greencastle, Pennsylv ...

. The Associated Telephone Utilities Company increased its budget for 1930 to $7,000,000, an increase of 40%. It invested $3,047,000 of this sum in the

Western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the We ...

, with $2,493,850 spent in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

and the surrounding region. $553,500 was divided among

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyomi ...

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 sout ...

, and

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

. Five

telephone operating companies were purchased by the Associated Telephone Utilities Company in August 1930. These utilities were consolidated with the Wisconsin properties of the Associated Telephone Utilities system. A one-month sales campaign resulted in the addition of 1,040 phones in August 1931. During this period the Midwestern utility worked in unison with the Associated Telephone Utilities System in New York. For the year ending December 31, 1932, the firm realized a profit of $13,305 after taxes.''Telephone Company Earns $13,305 In Year'', ''The Wall Street Journal'', June 23, 1933, pg. 7.

References

Technology companies disestablished in 1933 Defunct companies based in Wisconsin Telecommunications companies established in 1926 1926 establishments in Wisconsin 1933 disestablishments in Wisconsin