During the depression that followed, Hayden was forced to repeatedly lower residential and street-lighting rates. The council even threatened to grant another company a franchise. Hayden ’s relationship with the city council populated by members of the company ’s board was at times antagonistic. By the early 1870s, Hayden, who had returned to the presidency after Duncan ’s death in 1869, was expanding service and adding to gas-producing capacity. Northerners flowed south and the city began to grow. Duncan issued bonds and completed massive repairs that culminated on September 15, 1866, when the gas plant went back into service. When Sherman took the city, the gasworks was burned to the ground.Īfter the war, the company reconstituted and elected former Atlanta Intelligencer editor John W. As the war progressed, coal -and therefore gas -grew short. Five years later, when the Civil War broke out, stock held by northern investors, including Helme, was declared “alien ” and sold to the highest bidder. City officials were happy with their investment, because stock dividends were paying the city ’s entire street lighting bill. Julius Hayden became the company ’s first president, and gas lights rapidly became popular in Atlanta homes and businesses. Helme built his gas plant and laid three miles of main, and by the end of 1855 gas lamps could be seen on the city ’s streets.
The company got its start in 1855 when William Helme, an enterprising Philadelphian who had already built several gas retorts, persuaded the Atlanta City Council and several influential Atlanta citizens to invest in a private corporation to build a street-lighting system for the city. Its predominant business is gas distribution, but the company also has several diversified operations. It serves more than 1.2 million customers in 227 Georgia communities and more than 35,000 customers in Chattanooga and Cleveland, Tennessee.
Atlanta Gas Light Company is the southeastern United States ’ largest natural gas distribution company.
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