Georgia Power

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Georgia Power is an electricity corporation based in Georgia. It is the largest of the four electric utilities that is operated by Southern Company.

Georgia Power is an investor-owned, tax-paying public utility that serves more than two million customers in all but four of Georgia's 159 counties. It employs approximately 9000 workers throughout the state.^[1]

The Georgia Power Building, its primary corporate office building, is located at 241 Ralph McGill Boulevard in downtown Atlanta.

In 2006 the Savannah Electric & Power Company, a separate subsidiary of Southern Company, was merged into Georgia Power.

[edit] History

Originally the Georgia Railway and Power Company, it began in 1902 as a streetcar company running the trolleys in Atlanta, and was the successor to the Atlanta Consolidated Street Railway Company. In the 1930s, they published a free newsletter called Two Bells which was distributed on their streetcars.^[2] It built several dams, including the Morgan Falls Dam just north of the city, and some as far away as the Tallulah River in the northeast Georgia mountains. These hydroelectric dams form Lake Burton, Lake Seed, Lake Rabun, Lake Tallulah Falls and Lake Tugalo, the last straddling the border with South Carolina on the Tugaloo River.

After the Atlanta transit strike of 1950, the Atlanta Transit Company took-over operations. Atlanta Streetcar was formed in the 2000s to establish a new trolley service along Peachtree Street.

[edit] References

Kurtz, Wilber, "Technical Advisor: The Making of Gone With The Wind. The Hollywood Journals", Atlanta Historical Journal, Vol. XXII, No.2, Summer, 1978.