Union Electric Company

The Union Electric Company of Missouri (formerly : UEP) was an electric power utility first organized in 1902. As one of the S&P 500 largest companies in the United States, in 1997 its holding company merged with a smaller neighboring utility, Central Illinois Public Service Company through its holding company, CIPSCO Inc. (formerly : CIP), to form Ameren Corporation (: AEE) based in St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1902 in St. Louis, the Union Company was organized as the first incarnation of Union Electric Company. In 1904 Union Electric Company built the 36,000 kW coal-fired Ashley Street Plant in Near North Riverfront, St. Louis to provide steam heat to downtown St. Louis, as the main source of electricity that existed in St. Louis for years, was converted to oil in 1972, and was still in operation until 2011.

In 1904 it powered The Palace of Electricity's electric lights at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.

By 1906 Union Electric Company was a publicly traded stock and began to pay a cash dividend to shareholders, which it continued to pay every year since without interruption until the 1997 merger.

In 1909 Union Electric began selling electric cars in the automobile business, and became the St. Louis agent for Studebaker and Rauch & Lang automobiles.

In 1919, the Shubert-Jefferson Theatre in the Union Electric building hosted a post-war national caucus, in which the American Legion was born.

In 1927 A tornado struck St. Louis, destroying over US$10 million worth of property, including Union Electric's electricity lines to the city.

By 1929 Union Electric Company became a subsidiary holding company of North American Company, ^{(org chart)} which had once been one of the original stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Union Electric subsidiaries at the time within the North American pyramid included Union Electric Light and Power (Missouri) and Union Electric Light and Power of Illinois.

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