How it started
History
Pacific Power & Light was formed in 1910 from the merger of several financially troubled utilities in Oregon and Washington to form the Pacific Power & Light Company. It gradually expanded its reach to include most of Oregon, as well as portions of California, Washington and Wyoming. In 1984, it reorganized itself as a holding company, PacifiCorp, headquartered in Portland with Pacific Power as its main subsidiary.
Utah Power and Light (UP&L) was organized on 6 September 1912 from the merger of four electric companies in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming and was a Salt Lake City subsidiary of a large holding company, Electric Bond and Share Company (EBASCO) of New York. Within four years of its organization, UP&L had purchased twenty-seven other electric companies in the general Utah area, and eventually absorbed more than one hundred thirty. In 1881, one of those companies had made Salt Lake City the fifth city in the world with central station electricity.
In 1954, Pacific Power & Light merged with the Mountain States Power Company, essentially doubling the company's service area. In 1961, the company purchased the California Oregon Power Company, extending its service into southern Oregon and northern California.
In 1977, PacifiCorp spun off its coal mining interests into a mining company known as NERCO, which was eventually listed on the New York Stock Exchange and ranked as high as 353 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest American companies. Through its majority interest in NERCO, PacifiCorp was involved in the mining of coal, oil, natural gas, gold, silver, and uranium. PacifiCorp still owned 82% of NERCO in 1993, when it was acquired by the mining giant Rio Tinto Group.
In August 1987, PacifiCorp agreed to acquire Utah Power & Light. The merger was completed in January 1989.
From Wikipedia’s article on PacifiCorp, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2