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At the center of San Antonio’s growth from a small pioneering town to a major western metropolis sits CPS Energy, the largest municipally owned energy utility in the United States and an innovator in harnessing, conserving, and capitalizing on natural energy resources.
The story of modern energy in San Antonio begins in 1860, when the San Antonio Gas Company started manufacturing gas for streetlights in a small plant on San Pedro Creek, using tree resin that arrived by oxcart. The company grew from a dark, dusty frontier town with more saloons than grocery stores to a bustling crossroads to the West and, ultimately, a twentieth-first-century American city. Innovative city leaders purchased the utility from a New York–based holding company in 1942, and CPS Energy as we know it today was born.
In Powering the City, Catherine Nixon Cooke discusses the rise and fall of big holding companies, the impact of the Great Depression and World War II--when 25 percent of the company’s workforce enlisted in the armed forces--on the city’s energy supply, and the emergence of nuclear energy and a nationally acclaimed model for harnessing solar and wind energy.
Known and relatively unknown events are recounted, including Samuel Insull’s move to Europe after his empire crashed in 1929; President Franklin Roosevelt’s Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which made it possible for the city to purchase the San Antonio Public Service Company; the city's competition with the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority, whose champion was Congressman Lyndon Johnson, in which the city emerged victorious in a deal that today returns billions in financial benefit; legal wranglings such as one that led to the establishment of Valero Energy Corporation; and energy’s role in the Southwest Research Institute and the South Texas Medical Center, HemisFair 1968, Sea World, Fiesta Texas, and Morgan’s Wonderland.
Images from CPS's archive of historic photographs, some dating as far back as the early 1900s; back issues of its in-house magazine; and the Institute of Texas Cultures provide rich material to illustrate the story.
As CPS Energy celebrates seventy-five years of city ownership, the region's industrial, scientific, and technological innovation are due in part to the company’s extraordinary impact on San Antonio.
The story of modern energy in San Antonio begins in 1860, when the San Antonio Gas Company started manufacturing gas for streetlights in a small plant on San Pedro Creek, using tree resin that arrived by oxcart. The company grew from a dark, dusty frontier town with more saloons than grocery stores to a bustling crossroads to the West and, ultimately, a twentieth-first-century American city. Innovative city leaders purchased the utility from a New York–based holding company in 1942, and CPS Energy as we know it today was born.
In Powering the City, Catherine Nixon Cooke discusses the rise and fall of big holding companies, the impact of the Great Depression and World War II--when 25 percent of the company’s workforce enlisted in the armed forces--on the city’s energy supply, and the emergence of nuclear energy and a nationally acclaimed model for harnessing solar and wind energy.
Known and relatively unknown events are recounted, including Samuel Insull’s move to Europe after his empire crashed in 1929; President Franklin Roosevelt’s Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which made it possible for the city to purchase the San Antonio Public Service Company; the city's competition with the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority, whose champion was Congressman Lyndon Johnson, in which the city emerged victorious in a deal that today returns billions in financial benefit; legal wranglings such as one that led to the establishment of Valero Energy Corporation; and energy’s role in the Southwest Research Institute and the South Texas Medical Center, HemisFair 1968, Sea World, Fiesta Texas, and Morgan’s Wonderland.
Images from CPS's archive of historic photographs, some dating as far back as the early 1900s; back issues of its in-house magazine; and the Institute of Texas Cultures provide rich material to illustrate the story.
As CPS Energy celebrates seventy-five years of city ownership, the region's industrial, scientific, and technological innovation are due in part to the company’s extraordinary impact on San Antonio.
Price: $19.95
Pages: 208
Publisher: Trinity University Press
Imprint: Maverick Books
Publication Date:
30 November 2017
Trim Size: 10.00 X 8.50 in
ISBN: 9781595348432
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Corporate & Business History, SCIENCE / Energy, HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Southwest (AZ, NM, OK, TX)
“Powering a City is indispensible reading for anyone deeply interested in the life of San Antonio — and its future.”— San Antonio Express-News
Catherine Nixon Cooke is the author of Juan O’Gorman: A Confluence of Civilizations and Powering a City: How Energy and Big Dreams Transformed San Antonio, both published by Trinity University Press; The Thistle and the Rose: Romance, Railroads, and Big Oil in Revolutionary Mexico; and Tom Slick, Mystery Hunter, which is in development as a major motion picture. She is a contributor to two anthologies, They Lived to Tell the Tale: True Stories of Modern Adventure from the Legendary Explorers Club and Adventurous Dreams, Adventurous Lives. She and her husband divide their time between San Antonio, the Texas hill country, and more remote parts of the world where untold stories beckon.
— Catherine Nixon Cooke
Char Miller, who grew up in Darien, CT, received his BA from Pitzer College, and his MA and Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University. For 26 wonderful years, he taught U. S. history and urban studies at Trinity University in San Antonio. Now he directs the Environmental Analysis Program at Pomona College (Claremont CA), where he is the W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis. Miller has served as a Contributing Writer for the Texas Observer, and as Associate Editor of Environmental History and the Journal of Forestry. He is a Senior Fellow at the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, and writes a column for KCET (Los Angeles), entitled Golden Green, which focuses on environmental issues in California and the west.
— Char Miller
Bill Greehey is chairman of NuStar Energy L.P. and the founding chairman and CEO of Valero Energy Corporation. He led the company from its inception in 1980 until he retired as CEO in 2006 and as chair in 2007, when NuStar spun off from Valero. The Harvard Business Review named Greehey one of the world's best performing CEOs based based on his tenure at Valero. A noted philanthropist, he has given over $300 million to charitable causes. He is the founding chairman of Haven for Hope, a national model for transforming the lives of the homeless.
— Bill Greehey
— Catherine Nixon Cooke
Char Miller, who grew up in Darien, CT, received his BA from Pitzer College, and his MA and Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University. For 26 wonderful years, he taught U. S. history and urban studies at Trinity University in San Antonio. Now he directs the Environmental Analysis Program at Pomona College (Claremont CA), where he is the W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis. Miller has served as a Contributing Writer for the Texas Observer, and as Associate Editor of Environmental History and the Journal of Forestry. He is a Senior Fellow at the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, and writes a column for KCET (Los Angeles), entitled Golden Green, which focuses on environmental issues in California and the west.
— Char Miller
Bill Greehey is chairman of NuStar Energy L.P. and the founding chairman and CEO of Valero Energy Corporation. He led the company from its inception in 1980 until he retired as CEO in 2006 and as chair in 2007, when NuStar spun off from Valero. The Harvard Business Review named Greehey one of the world's best performing CEOs based based on his tenure at Valero. A noted philanthropist, he has given over $300 million to charitable causes. He is the founding chairman of Haven for Hope, a national model for transforming the lives of the homeless.
— Bill Greehey