Washington Gas

WGL Holdings, Inc.
Public
Traded as NYSE: WGL
Industry Utilities
Founded 1848
Headquarters Washington, D.C.
Areas served
 United States
Key people
 Terry D. McCallister (Chairman & CEO)
Products Gas Utilities
Revenue US$2.466 billion (2013)[1]
US$166 million (2013)[1]
US$80 million (2013)[1]
Total assets US$4.260 billion (2013)[1]
Number of employees
 1,444 (Q4 2014)[2]
Subsidiaries Washington Gas
Hampshire Gas
Washington Gas Resources Corporation
Crab Run Gas Company
Website www.wglholdings.com

WGL Holdings, Inc., is a public utility holding company located in the United States that serves customers in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. The company's Washington Gas Light Company subsidiary distributes natural gas to more than one million customers.

WGL is a diversified energy business that provides natural gas, electricity, green power, carbon reduction and energy services and natural gas exploration, production, and storage though its subsidiaries, including Washington Gas, Washington Energy Services, WGL Midstream, and Hampshire Gas.

History

Washington Gas logo

Genesis

Washington, D.C., was decades slower than some other eastern U.S. cities to move from candles or oil to gas for lighting. Baltimore was first, in 1816; New York City was partially lighted with gas in 1825. In 1840, when a gas company for Washington remained only a proposal, a U.S. Senate document argued for gas' salutary effect on the local economy: "fancy and other stores would introduce this light, and thus add to the cheerfulness of the public ways."

Among the early proponents of gas was James Crutchett, who bought a house north of the Capitol grounds and lit it with gas. This drew the attention of Congress, which voted him $17,500 to light up the Capitol and helped encourage public support for wider use of gas.

A supporter of Crutchett's ideas was Benjamin B. French, Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives, who helped attract other important supporters, including William A. Bradley, the city's postmaster and mayor; John F. Callan, a druggist; his brother Michael P. Callan, a Post Office clerk; hardware merchant William H. Harrover; William H. English, a Treasury clerk who became a Congressman from Indiana and later a Vice-Presidential candidate; and Jacob Bigelow, an attorney and abolitionist who later helped escaped slave Ann Maria Weems.[3]

Two petitions were sent to Congress in April 1848, and on July 8 of that year, lawmakers issued the first Congressional charter for a company that would extract gas from coal. At last, the nation's capital had its first gas company, the Washington Gas Light Company.[4] The company was established on the tenth street of the Foggy Bottom neighborhood, and eventually led to the area's urbanization.

1850-1900

George Washington Riggs became the president of the company in 1856. Two years later, the company began to build a new, more efficient factory, the West Station Works, between 26th and G Streets NW.

Meanwhile, a new plant was constructed in Foggy Bottom in 1858 at the intersection of New Hampshire and Virginia avenues NW. This location, at the head of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, gave it access to barges carrying coal from West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

These plants changed the neighborhood. Between 1830 and 1860, the percentage of "skilled laborers" in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood declined from 44% to 23%, while the percentage of "unskilled laborers" rose to 44%. [5]

During the American Civil War, coal and transportation grew scarce. “The cost of making gas increased one hundred and twenty-five percent, and another problem appeared when Congress reduced the gas rate seventeen percent.”[6] The company sought help from the Secretary of War and from President Abraham Lincoln, who he wrote to John W. Garrett, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, asking him to “bring coal to the city and afford the continuation of the necessary gas lighting.”[7] Production levels for gas went down during the Civil War, they soon returned to normal.

In the 1870s, several large holding tanks (gasometers) were erected at the Foggy Bottom site.

In 1878, Thomas Edison introduced the incandescent lamp, a threat to the company.

In 1891, one of the gasometers exploded; the cause was attributed to a large storm.[8]

20th century

Gas furnaces began to appear in 1915; some remain in use today.[9]

In 1947, the industry expanded to 22 million customers.[10] [11]

The Foggy Bottom plant operated until the 1950s. In 1964, the Washington Gas Light Company sold development rights for the location in a deal that stipulated that the new structure would be supplied exclusively by the company. [12] The last building of the Watergate was completed in 1971.

In 1997, in response to newly deregulated gas and energy markets, Washington Gas formed Washington Gas Resources Corp to serve as a holding company for non-utility subsidiaries. Also in 1997, the company created an unregulated energy company, Washington Gas Energy Services, as a subsidiary of that holding company.[13] Washington Gas Energy Services started with just a handful of customers and as of 2014 had grown into an $8.0 million company. [14]

Present day

Nineteenth-century traces of the gas company include the Civil War-era aqueduct across Rock Creek Park between the Georgetown and Foggy Bottom neighborhoods.

Gas and electric streetlamps installed by the company can still be found in Georgetown, on the main streets near Virginia and New Hampshire Avenues, and even past Foggy Bottom.


In 2013, the company rebranded itself as WGL with the goal of "being a new kind of energy company: answer-oriented, technology and data driven, responsive and built for the complex energy markets of today and tomorrow".[15] This rebrand included the renaming of Washington Gas Energy Services to WGL Energy and the inclusion of the term "a WGL Company" under the traditional Washington Gas logo.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 WGL Holdings, Inc. "WGL Holdings, Ltd. 2013 Fact Sheet" (PDF). WGL Holdings, Ltd. Retrieved 2015-08-17.
  2. ↑ Bloomberg L.P. "WGL Holdings, Inc. (WGL:New York Consolidated)". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 2015-08-17.
  3. ↑ Snodgrass, Mary Ellen, The Underground Railroad: An Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Operations, Routledge, 2015, p 54
  4. ↑ Townsend, George Alfred (1874). New Washington, or, The Renovated Capital City. Washington DC: Chronicle Pub.
  5. ↑ Sherwood, Suzanne (1978). Foggy Bottom 1800-1975: A Study in the Uses of an Urban Neighborhood. Washington DC: George Washington University.
  6. ↑ Hershman, Robert (1948). Growing with Washington. Washington: Washington Gas Light Company. p. 46.
  7. ↑ Hershman, Robert (1948). Growing with Washington. Washington DC: Washington Gas Light Company. p. 47.
  8. ↑ "DEATH IN THE TORNADO: Fatal Collapse of the New Metzerott Music Hall". Washington Post. November 24, 1891.
  9. ↑ Hershman, Robert (1948). Growing with Washington. Washington: Washington Gas Light Company. p. 79.
  10. ↑ Hershman, Robert (1948). Growing with Washington. Washington: Washington Gas Light Company. p. 80.
  11. ↑ Hershman, Robert (1948). Growing with Washington. Washington: Washington Gas Light Company. p. 81.
  12. ↑ "Watergate, Gas Co. Sign Unusual Pact". Washington Post. September 9, 1964.
  13. ↑ Pietropaoli, Edward (2012). Growing with Washington, Part II. Washington, Washington Gas. p. 85
  14. ↑ http://www.wglholdings.com/2014-corporate-performance-report/index.html, accessed 8/18/2015
  15. ↑ http://www.wglholdings.com/2014-corporate-performance-report/index.html, accessed 8/18/2015
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