New York State History

Today, a single operating company, Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, provides a great reservoir of electric power serving hundreds of communities from Lake Erie to the Hudson and from the Canadian border to the southern tier of counties of New York State. This single operating company serves a large part of the State with gas.

Before 1929, three unrelated groups of companies served the Great Corridor and its adjacent territory. One gathered power on the headwaters of the Hudson and on the eastern and southeastern slopes of the Adirondacks and delivered it to the Capital District. Another derived its power chiefly from the northern and southwestern slopes of the Adirondacks and from the Mohawk and its tributaries; the third centered around Niagara hydro projects and the Huntley steam station in Buffalo. In that year, Niagara Hudson Power Corporation was formed to acquire these properties. Fifty-nine companies in all were embraced in the System. By 1937, the corporate structure was simplified by reducing the number of System companies to twenty through consolidation and dissolution of separate corporate entities. Three principal operating sub­sidiaries were formed.

But the facts of daily operation disregarded the arbitrary lines that theo­retically separated the areas served by the three companies. In January 1950, a consolidation plan brought the corporate structure in line with actual operating conditions. A single operating company, Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, was established.