Kansas City Power and Light Company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kansas City Power and Light Company is an electric utility company serving the Kansas City metropolitan area.
It is wholy owned subsidiary of Great Plains Energy Incorporated of which it is the biggest component.
The company traces its roots to 1876 when Edwin Ruthven Weeks, Joseph S. Chick, L. R. Moore, and Judge William Holmes invested $4,000 to form the Kawsmouth Electric Light Company to serve 13 merchants in Downtown Kansas City.
In 1885 the company recincorporated as Kansas City Electric Light Company.
Weeks spun off the Edison Electric Light & Power Company to meet residential demand. An electric war ensued and in 1883 J. Ogden Armour, heir to the Armour Packing Company purchased the company in 1900 to power the Metropolitan Street Railway Company of Kansas City.
Under Armour the company bought competitors and built a new power plant in 1903 and providing steam heat to downtown businesses. The company focused on the trolley company and in 1911 it went into receivership. In 1917 the company spun off the trolley business (which still controlled some power plants) and emerged from bankruptcy as Kansas City Light & Power Company. In 1917 the company began construction on the Northeast Power station,
In 1919 the company reincorporated again, as Kansas City Power and Light Company. After acquiring the Carroll County Electric Company in 1923, it became Kansas City Power & Light Company.
Armour's interest was sold in 1923. Continental Gas & Electric Corporation purchased the controlling interest in 1924 and was part of United Light and Power until United dissolved in 1950.
The Hawthorn Station, situated on the Missouri River, was started in 1948, and the first of two units were completed in 1951. Two other units followed and were fully operational by 1955. Kansas City Power became independent in 1950. It acquired Eastern Kansas Utilities in 1952.
It was part of a consortium that built Wolf Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Burlington, Kansas.
In a 2001 corporate restructure it became part of Great Plains Energy Incorporated.
