History

We trace our corporate roots to the first years of our nation’s independence – 1787 – when the Virginia General Assembly authorized, by charter, the creation of the Appomattox Trustees.

The Trustees oversaw The Upper Appomattox Company, which was formed to clear, improve and extend navigation on the Appomattox River. In the early days of the Republic, canals and rivers were vital arteries of commerce.

In the ensuing years, a total of 235 companies contributed in some form to Dominion Energy’s corporate ancestry. Among those companies are enterprises as diverse as real estate, horse-shoe manufacturing, water power, ice making, coal mining, railway and ferry service, trolley cars and street lighting.

Key Dates

1811-1812

Two early ancestors were the Rappahannock Company and the Roanoke Navigation Company. The former was organized in 1811 to develop canals and water power along the Rappahannock River in Virginia. The latter was established in 1812 to improve navigation on the Roanoke River in eastern North Carolina.

1859

The Richmond Union Passenger Railway Company was established as one of the country’s first horse- or mule-drawn streetcar companies, or horse cars, as they came to be known. This new mode of urban transport became more and more common up until the close of the 19th century.

1882

Thomas Edison introduced the world to direct current, heralding the new era of electricity and the dawn of home lighting. Working as a consultant to George Westinghouse, Nikola Tesla introduced an alternating current system in 1885. Together, these inventions completed transformed our company and society.

1887-1888

The early use of electricity led to another invention – electric trolley cars. Frank Sprague, an assistant of Thomas Edison, installed the nation’s first successful large electric street railway system in our home town of Richmond, VA.

1901

The Virginia Passenger and Power Company was franchised to operate electric railways and power plants.

1909

A key milestone in Dominion Energy’s history, the Virginia Railway and Power Company was incorporated to operate railways, supply electric power and distribute manufactured gas to customers. This marked the entry of the company into the business of supplying electricity to residential and business customers.

1925

New York engineering firm Stone & Webster formed a syndicate and purchased Virginia Railway and Power Company from Frank Jay Gould, the principal owner of VRPC. Following a merger with the Spotsylvania Power Company of Fredericksburg, the combined company became Virginia Electric and Power Company – known as “VEPCO” by its customers.

1947

VEPCO became an independent, investor-owned utility. At that time, the company had more than 11,000 stockholders and served about 450,000 gas and electric customers.

1983

Dominion Resources, Inc., or DRI, was formed as a holding company and began trading under that name on the New York Stock Exchange. The holding company structure would allow the company to take advantage of emerging opportunities in deregulated or unregulated sectors of the energy business.

VEPCO became Virginia Power and remained as DRI’s regulated electric power subsidiary. In North Carolina, the utility started operating as North Carolina Power. During the rest of the 1980s and the 90s, DRI pursued power generation opportunities in the U.S. and internationally. The business grew and diversified and became a Fortune 250 company.

2000

DRI entered a $9 billion merger with Consolidated Natural Gas of Pittsburgh, another Fortune 250 company that was originally part of Standard Oil. At the time of the merger, the combined company – named Dominion – served about 4 million electric and natural gas customers in 5 states.