History About
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Entergy History About It all started with a handshake, some sawdust and a vision. About Us More than a century ago, Harvey Couch had the idea to bring safe, affordable, reliable power to the Middle South — power that would open the door to the modern world for the people and communities we serve. His vision lives on today: Entergy delivers electricity to 3 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. About Vision & Mission Vision Mission We Power Life. We exist to grow a world-class energy business that creates sustainable value for our four stakeholders. Customers: constantly striving for reasonable costs and providing safe, reliable products and services. Employees: provide a safe, rewarding, engaging, diverse and inclusive work environment, fair compensation and benefits, and opportunities to advance their careers. Communities: create value through economic development, philanthropy, volunteerism and advocacy, and by operating our business safely and in a socially and environmentally responsible way. Owners: provide top-quartile returns through the relentless pursuit of opportunities to optimize our business. History The Entergy story began with a pile of sawdust succeed. With the fuel source secured, Couch and a handshake. The sawdust belonged to H. H. began work on electrifying the state. How it all Foster, president of the Arkansas Land and Lumber Company. The handshake was between On Dec. 17, 1914, Malvern and Arkadelphia were Began Foster and Harvey Couch, president of Arkansas lit up as the generators at the lumber company Power Company. were turned on for the first time. Now called Arkansas Light and Power Company, Arkansas’ Couch was an entrepreneur who lived in newest endeavor to bring the benefits of electricity Arkansas at the turn of the 20th century. He to the rural South began with two 550 kilowatt invested in a phone company, radio station, generators and 22 miles of transmission lines. railroad and his biggest success, an electric power company. On Nov. 13, 1913, with a Couch’s company grew rapidly. Ten years later, $500,000 line of credit and a franchise to provide he completed construction of the Remmel electricity to the Arkansas towns of Malvern and hydroelectric dam on the Ouachita River. His Arkadelphia, Couch shook hands with H. H. transmission system now covered 300 miles. With Foster for his sawdust. Couch would use sawdust a 9,000-kilowatt generator in place, Couch set his from Foster’s lumber company as fuel to generate sights beyond the state’s boundaries. electricity for his power company. It was a new beginning for Couch and electric service in the Couch began acquiring independent electric state. properties in Jackson, Vicksburg, Columbus and Greenville, Mississippi. His plan was to develop Couch’s goal was to have an integrated electric an interconnected system much like the one in system with numerous sources of power at a Arkansas, but between states. On April 12, 1923, reasonable price. Service reliability was foremost Mississippi Power and Light Company was on his mind. He knew if he could provide a incorporated in Mississippi. reliable product at a good price, he would The fuel and electricity for this new company Elsewhere, the competition to electrify New would come from Louisiana. The Louisiana Power Orleans was fierce. Electric lighting had been Company was formed so Couch could take full introduced there at the 1884 Cotton Centennial advantage of the abundant supply of natural gas Exposition, but high costs, fear and unreliability found in northern Louisiana. In November 1925, were obstacles to electrifying the city. In the early Couch’s Sterlington generating station was placed 1900s, nine separate electric companies online. The largest power plant south of St. Louis, competed in New Orleans. Nearly all were small, its 30,000-kilowatt capacity was owned by three isolated generators that served limited areas, companies: Arkansas Light and Power, operated on different voltages and used various Mississippi Power and Light, and Louisiana Power kinds of equipment. None were interconnected, Company. even within the city. At the dedication of the Sterlington plant, Gov. Harvey Parnell of Arkansas said, “Harvey Couch has done more to develop these three states – Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi – than any other man.” Couch’s goal of an integrated electric system was becoming a reality. History Electric Bond and Share: The Competition Sidney Mitchel worked for Electric Bond and Share Company, which was owned by The Great Depression that began in 1929 brought hard times, reduced sales and General Electric. EBASCO was building, financing and operating struggling new shriveling capital markets to utilities. The Electric Power and Light Corporation was electric systems. By the early 1920s Mitchel had acquired all the electrical service in no exception. Then Mississippi Power and Light president Rex Brown described New Orleans and was expanding in other places including Little Rock, Arkansas, and company operations during the era: “Stockholders had to be continually assured that Memphis, Tennessee. their investments were safe. At the same time, they had to be convinced that dividends, while in arrears, would eventually be paid. Our customers, hard-pressed Like Couch, Mitchel knew the only way to grow his company was to expand. Soon for finances as our company, could not pay higher rates or increased utilization. In EBASCO was competing directly with Couch as their expansion overlapped in fact, many discontinued service because they had to choose between electricity and Arkansas and Louisiana. Both men knew that they could not continue competing for food. The meeting of payroll was a continuous nightmare for company officers.” territory, so in 1925 they joined forces, consolidating their properties into one large, interconnected system. The new system was called Electric Power and Light Despite the hardships, Arkansas Power and Light, MP&L, Louisiana Power and Corporation, owned by EBASCO and run by Couch. The system that would become Light, and New Orleans Public Service Inc., the company serving the New Orleans Entergy was born. area, made it through intact. Some of the nation’s largest utilities did not. History The Public Utility Samuel Insull was Thomas Edison’s business South Utilities Inc., Entergy's former name, was Holding Company Act secretary. He moved to Chicago to build a formed as a holding company for Arkansas Power multilevel utility organization that included holding and Light, Louisiana Power and Light, Mississippi companies, which held other holding companies. Power and Light, and New Orleans Public Service The profit-taking opportunities inherent in his Inc. By special request of New Orleans officials, pyramid scheme set off a national acquisition NOPSI was allowed to keep its gas and transit craze. By 1932, there were eight holding operations in the city. companies controlling 73% of the investor-owned electric business. The scheme collapsed and In MSU’s 1949 annual report, the company’s first public outcry produced the Public Utility Holding president, Edgar Dixon, noted in his letter to Company Act of 1935. shareholders that the year was “one of growth and progress for the companies of the Middle PUHCA broke up the multilevel holding South System.” He reported that the company companies and required them to register with the was paying a dividend of 27.5 cents a share to U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The more than 25,000 stockholders “who reside in companies were required to specialize in one every state of the country and in 24 foreign service and relinquish their non-related properties. countries.” At the end of its first year of EBASCO was one of those companies. operations, MSU served over 625,000 customers in more than 1,600 communities. In 1949, EBASCO’s Electric Power and Light Corporation was dissolved. In its place, Middle History Two Decades of Growth The 1950s and 1960s were decades of In 1965 the system was hit by Hurricane By the end of the 1960s, Andrus reported in growth and prosperity for the company. Betsy, then the worst storm in the company’s the annual report that the number of Capacity grew with demand and the system history. Betsy destroyed the southeastern customers had grown to more than 1 million. met all challenges and opportunities. The end of the system. In the New Orleans area, Generating capacity, primarily using oil and system’s largest generating station, gas-fired 90% of the system was damaged or gas, had grown, too. But this period of rapid Ninemile Point near New Orleans, came destroyed. All of Louisiana Power and expansion came to an abrupt halt in the online in the 1950s. Little Gypsy, located on Light’s customers in southern Louisiana 1970s as a result of the 1973 OPEC oil the Mississippi River upriver from New were without power. With help from their embargo. Orleans, became the world’s first fully- sister companies and neighboring utilities, automated generating unit in 1961. nearly all customers were restored within The system responded by continuing to nine days. LP&L’s publication, Fifty Years of Edgar Dixon died in 1962 and was Service, noted at the time that Hurricane diversify its fuel mix. In 1970, LP&L succeeded by Gerald Andrus. As Middle Betsy had inflicted “the greatest weather- announced plans for its Waterford 3 nuclear South Utilities’ second president, Andrus’ related damage to a single utility.” unit near Taft, Louisiana. Two years later, first major achievement was the creation of Mississippi Power and Light announced the service company, Middle South Services In 1968, the system entered the nuclear age plans for the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station Inc. (now known as Entergy Services Inc.) in when Arkansas Power and Light was near Port Gibson, Mississippi. The same 1963. The company provided the common granted a construction permit to build year, System Fuels Inc.